Although Sonia Deleo left Jasper three years ago, her connection to the town is still strong. That’s why when she started planning her first tour she made sure to make a stop in her old stomping grounds.
The singer-songwriter, best known for her contributions to Jasper’s theatre community, recently partnered up with Calgary musician Natalie Inga Gauthier and within a few short months, the two had already decided it was time to take their show on the road. Their first of five shows is Jan. 9 in Lethbridge and on Jan. 15 they will be in Jasper at the Olive Bistro and Lounge.
Deleo said she’s particularly excited about the Jasper show because, not only is Jasper near to her heart, but the show also falls on the same day as the release of her first single—a song she wrote with Darryl Huculak, the owner of Olive, in 2005.
“He wrote the music for it, so it’s really special that I was able to line this all up on the same day,” she said, noting that she and Huculak were in a band together for about a year.
“That was my first experience of real collaboration and we would get together and just write a bunch of songs in one sitting and it was really, really amazing.”
Deleo said because of that experience she set the bar high when she started looking for someone to collaborate with in Calgary.
“I had that experience in my head as what it should be like,” she said.
And that’s what she’s found with Gauthier.
“It’s been the craziest, most synergistic, magical connection and we had no idea it was coming,” she said, explaining that she and Gauthier had been acquaintances for the past three years, but it wasn’t until last fall when they ran into each other by chance that they decided to try jamming together.
“We ended up chatting and I was sort of saying that I was looking for a band or looking for some people to collaborate with and she was like, ‘Yeah me too, it’s really hard to find, blah blah blah.’ So we both were talking about that for ourselves and then all of a sudden a lightbulb moment happened and we were like, ‘Wait a minute, should we try playing together?’”
So they did and immediately they clicked, collaborating on a new song during that first jam.
“We were wrapping up that day and she suddenly said, ‘I have this new bit of music that I wrote, it’s a song but I don’t have lyrics for it and I don’t know what it’s about yet, but when I was writing it I had my pregnant friend in mind, so that’s where I’m at, but just see if you have anything in your book that you just want to jam to it with.’
“So she starts playing this song and I start flipping through my book and then all of a sudden I realized her music she was playing was the exact music to a song that I had just written. I just had the lyrics and I had a melody in my head, I hadn’t written the guitar for it. So I literally flipped to that immediately and it fit in syllable for syllable like a glove. It was crazy.
“We have since called that song ‘Pregnant Friend,’ even though it has absolutely nothing to do with that at all,” Deleo said with a laugh.
So far, the women have only performed in public once and it was to sing that song during one of Gauthier’s solo shows. It was an experience like no other.
“Granted it was a smallish crowd with lots of people we knew from the arts community, but the crowd asked us to play it again,” she said. “I feel like that doesn’t usually happen, so it felt really right and has ever since.”
To see Deleo and Gauthier perform, head to the Olive Bistro and Lounge Jan. 15. The show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $10.
Nicole Veerman
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