Manitoba singer hits right notes at California music festival

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This article was published 04/05/2019 (2439 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

INDIO, Calif. — Emerging artists who score a booking at the Stagecoach Festival, which ran April 26-28, surely experience that “good news/bad news” moment when reality sinks in: they get to play the world’s largest gathering of country music fans, but usually do so early in the day, long before the masses show up for the superstar headliners.

That’s what lower-tier acts are up against when they perform on the festival’s recently introduced SiriusXM Spotlight Stage, a smaller space placed 90 metres or so in front of the Mane Stage where the most popular contemporary country acts perform beginning in the late afternoons.

On April 27, Manitoban singer-songwriter William Prince overcame the blazing midday heat on his way to delivering one of the most captivating performances of the weekend.

Armed with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, the 33-year-old artist served up several compelling songs from his 2015 album Earthly Days, which won contemporary roots album of the year at the 2017 Juno Awards, Canada’s answer to the Grammys.

Prince’s songs transcend the conventions and tropes of commercial country, demonstrating more in common with the folk-country tradition of literate songwriting exemplified by Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson.

In fact, Prince cited Kristofferson among his key influences shortly after finishing his set, relaxing backstage in Stagecoach’s artist compound.

“I’ve written songs, and poetry, since I was a kid,” he said, noting that his father also wrote songs and recorded three albums of his own. “I was at church every Sunday, playing this old country-western-gospel stuff and listening to Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson.”

Prince is now wrapping up work on a new album to follow Earthly Days and still is regularly on the road, building a following piece by piece, playing for a few fans at a time, as he did last weekend.

“I love the atmosphere” at Stagecoach, he said. “You’re put in the realm of entertainers who are really pushing the boundaries of performance, and then I come in here low and lazy with just a guitar and the songs kind of carry and bring people in and it just became any other show. That’s the best part of it all.”

— Los Angeles Times