Audiences across North America, Europe, and Australia have fallen in love with the up-beat harmonies of the Canadian folk/roots vocal trio the Good Lovelies. As a testament to their acclaimed concert performances, their 2012 live album, Live at Revolution, won Canadian Folk Music Awards for the trio as both Vocal Group of the Year and Ensemble of the Year.
The group has also had an impressive string of award-winning studio albums: their self-titled 2009 album won a Juno – the “Canadian Grammy” – as Roots and Traditional Album of the Year. It also won a Canadian Folk Music Award for the group as Emerging Artist of the Year. Their 2011 album “Let the Rain Fall” was nominated for another Juno, and won the trio a CFMA as Vocal Group of the Year, beating The Wailin’ Jennys. Their most recent album, Burn the Plan, has just been nominated for two more Canadian Folk Music Awards.
The aptly named Good Lovelies are Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore, all of them best friends. Part folk/roots, part western swing, the Toronto-based trio wows audiences with stunning three-part vocal harmonies, clever original songs, and funny on-stage repartee drawn from a seemingly endless succession of adventures on the road.
With their long-awaited new album, Burn the Plan, the Good Lovelies are both fulfilling and defying their so-called musical destiny as a “folk trio.” What makes the new album special is that the fact that the band’s considerable strengths – winsome songwriting, impeccable vocals, and triangulated charisma – don’t tell the full story. There’s a new spirit of adventurousness that gives Burn the Plan an extra spark; the album is permeated with textures and tones from musical worlds away.
This time around, the trio has spent time developing, expanding and honing their sound as musicians first, and as Good Lovelies second. The new songs were crafted not to ‘fit’ the band’s catalogue per se, but to exercise some autonomy from the confines of genre and tradition. The band is still playing, but not always to type, you might say.
Burn the Plan is a study in how individual voices find common ground in such a tight-knit group dynamic. What keeps the three Lovelies making music together is not just their uncanny vocal compatibility; it’s their unshakeable friendship, which supports each member contributing to the songwriting in distinct ways. The story behind Burn the Plan is something of a contradiction – while each Lovely contributed their most personal songs to date, each song is filtered through a unique process of collaboration that characterizes the band’s entire M.O, where the final results are really and truly equal.
The Lincoln show is expected to include songs from Burn the Plan, from their earlier recordings, including their 2009 holiday album, Under the Mistletoe, and from their anticipated upcoming holiday EP, Winter’s Calling.
If you like The Wailin’ Jennys, don’t miss this show – you’ll love the Good Lovelies.