Saskatchewan singer/songwriter Ellen Froese returned to the Slice to enrapture a good sized crowd Friday, Jan. 13.
She was at the Owl Acoustic Lounge during the summer, but I missed her. Before that she was last here in 2019 so it was great to hear her again.
Froese played a laid back, enjoyable, enrapturing set, which felt just like she was playing in your living room. She told stream of consciousness stories and musings while strumming her guitar. She had a lot of new music to share, but wound down her set by playing a request for an older song “Girl on the Cover of the Eaton’s Spring and Summer 1975 Catalogue.”
She wound down her set with “ I’m So Happy Alone, featuring a harp solo.
She has a beautiful smooth, smoky, folkie voice along the lines of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez and as always looked just delighted to be here.
She ended with “Ease My Mind” but happily posed with photos and selfies on the stage with her fans after her set before making way for Richard Inman and his band.
Richard Inman always plays engaging shows. he sings as if every heartfelt word he utters is the most meaningful word ever uttered. The audience can tell he feels every single word of his songs.
Inman told stories and sang original music backed by some of Lethbridge’s best musicians including Megan Brown on fiddle, drummer Brad Brouwer, bassist Paul Holden, led guitarist Kevin Peters and Trevor Christensen adding country twang on steel guitar.
They started strong with “What Was I Thinking” (Not the Dierks Bentley hit) and went even more country with “Love and Rose.”
One of many highlights of the first set was a song about “losing all my money playing cards.”
He played a song that reached number 6 on the Indigenous country charts.
And played several songs from his 2020 “ Come Back Through” album including “ Waiting on the River” and “ Cut Fence and Let God Sort Em out about the wildfires in Waterton.
They wound down the set with a request for “Coming Back Home To You.”
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
