Soul singer Dawn Pemberton shares feel-good tunes at Vancouver Folk Music Festival At Home
The vocal coach and pianist is going for joy and gratitude in her upcoming concert with her band
Pianist and soul-singer Dawn Pemberton grew up in a home where music was always playing. Photo by Wendy D.
Vancouver Folk Music Festival At Home presents Dawn Pemberton Band July 16 to 25 online and streaming at the Rio Theatre July 17 and 18.
WHEN COVID-19 HIT the world in full force last March, East Vancouver-based soul singer and pianist Dawn Pemberton was in New Orleans as part of a southern U.S. tour with Moira Small. News had broken that tens of thousands of people there had been exposed to the novel coronavirus at Mardi Gras, turning Louisiana into a raging hot spot. The musicians were back home the next day. It was the start of a brutally challenging time for artists everywhere; Pemberton lost so many gigs overnight along with the income that would have come with them. However, she didn’t dwell on the difficulty of those pandemic days.
“I welcomed the pause,” Pemberton says in a phone interview with Stir. “I call it a sacred pause. I was tired. I had been touring since December. I went with the flow and tried to spend time resting and learning and reflecting. Eventually things turned around for the better.”
Pemberton pivoted, teaching vocal classes online, doing livestream shows, launching a Patreon page, and more. These days, her schedule is starting to pick up. On the heels of her recent appearance at the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Pemberton is also appearing at Vancouver Folk Music Festival At Home 2021.
Dawn Pemberton Band—which includes bassist Derek DiFilippo, guitarist Gavin Youngash, drummer Johnny Andrews, and Jonny Tobin on keys—recorded its VFMF At Home concert at the Rickshaw. It’s a show that’s designed to lift people’s spirits.
“It’s a lot of feel-good music—funky tunes, some of my originals, new takes on soul standards and folk favourites,” Pemberton says. “We need it. I need it.”
“I feel like the whole human experience over the last few years has been hard for a lot of people on many levels, in terms of suffering and grief and loss,” she says. “Not just navigating the pandemic; a lot of people I know have also been navigating personal hardships or health issues or family issues. Everyone has been dealt a really tricky hand. I feel like we need joy and celebration and just a moment of gratitude of being alive and still here and thriving.”
Pemberton also performs in the VFMF At Home Circle of Songs with Khari Wendell McClelland, Kathleen Nisbet, and Marin Patenaude.
Her love of music grew out of her childhood home, which was filled with it. Calypso and soca were always present, both of her parents hailing from the Caribbean. Her dad’s record collection also included the likes of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Bing Crosby, while each of her three older siblings had distinct tastes: the eldest brother was into punk and heavy metal; her sister was into jazz, and her other brother dug breakdancing and hip hop. Her mom listened to everything gleefully.
Pemberton, who released her debut album, Say Somethin’, in 2014 and who won the Western Canadian Music Award for Urban Recording of the Year in 2015, is the founder of Roots ‘N’ Wings, a choir for women aged 19 and up. She describes her style as soul with funk and jazz influences. “I love music that is groovy and that makes our bodies move subconsciously, anything that get us out of our minds and in our bodies,” she says.
Beyond VFMF at Home, Pemberton is performing at the Harrison Festival of the Arts and the Soulshine Garden Concert Series on the Sunshine Coast. As vocal coach, she’s a member of the creative team of the Arts Club Theatre’s forthcoming production Beneath Springhill: the Maurice Ruddick Story. Originally directed and developed by Linda Kash, it’s the inspiring true story of African-Canadian “singing miner” who emerged as a lifeline for fellow Nova Scotia miners who were trapped 4,000 feet underground for nine days in 1958.
Pemberton has also branched out into broadcasting, hosting Get on the Good Foot on CKUA, an Alberta-based donor-supported radio station.
Music fuels her, and singing provides her with a sense of freedom.
“It’s one way in my life that I feel free,” Pemberton says. “I love that it connects me to other people in a really unique and authentic way, and I love how it feels: I feel like I’m connected to something that is greater than I am, that is greater than all of us. I go somewhere special when I sing. I’m transported somewhere else.”
For more information about VFMF At Home, visit https://thefestival.bc.ca/.
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