The Sooke Folk Music Society normally curtails it’s activities for the summer, but this Saturday, July 30, we are delighted to bring back Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart for a special summer concert at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, as part of their “Driver ‘til she drops” tour; a reference to their Chevy Suburban, which now has some 465,000 miles on the odometer
Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart met for the first time 1991 at a songwriters night in Nashville TN. They knew that night it was one of them things that are just meant to be. They were married in 1992.
It would be quite a balancing act at that time raising a family and trying to make a living along with all the other stuff that came with getting by, “but we managed,” Stacey said as she looked back at her first encounter with the world of touring.
Stacey Earle’s first show was on an arena stage in Sydney, playing rhythm guitar in her brother’s band, Steve Earle & the Dukes.
She spent about a year and a half on tour with her brother, and then returned to Nashville to start a career of her own as a country/folk singer/songwriter.
“I was 30-years-old and asking/seeking a recording deal in Nashville.At that age it was like asking God to turn back the world clock.”
Mark Stuart went to the finest of music schools, he started his schooling listening and admiring his uncle’s guitar playing and his dad’s fiddling. By age 15 he would find himself playing in the school of honky tonks and beer joints in and around Nashville in his dad’s band.
Mark was off the road when he met Stacey and that very night he would play the first note of her music never leaving her side. Mark still somehow found the time to work on his own music recording his solo record and touring.
Mark, as well, spent some time in the Dukes in the 1990s. Like Earle, he recalls it as a time of glamour: appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and MTV.
“I had someone tuning my guitar, strapping on my guitar,” he said. “Now we carry our stuff three flights up in the Red Roof Inn.”
Over the years Stacey and Mark have learned so much from each other. Their songs are the diaries of their life — good times and bad, thereby completing the love they have. Together they share the full load of getting by day-by-day.
They’ve gone on to release their duo albums, Never Gonna Let You Go in 2003 and S&M Communion Bread in 2005, and their Gearle Records 2008 release Love from Stacey and Mark which is available at thehir live shows only.
While, no doubt, each still remains an individual solo artist with solo releases, such as the 2008 release of Mark Stuart’s Left of Nashville and Stacey Earle’s The Ride also in 2008), it is through the respect of each other’s work and years of playing together that they have created their unique sound. And that sound allows each individual to shine through. Stacey and Mark are no doubt together ‘til death do they part.
Please be sure to join us for what will be a memorable evening with these two very engaging singer/songwriters.
The gig is on Saturday, July 30 at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, at 1962 Murray Road. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. with show at 8. Tickets are $15 and are available at the door or in advance at Shopper’s Drug Mart.