Canadian country-rockers the Sadies headline the Great American Music Hall
A regular attraction at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, second generation Canadian country-rock veterans the Sadies return to San Francisco Friday night to headline the Great American Music Hall with local treasure Sylvie Simmons opening.
The band was founded in the early '90s by siblings Dallas and Travis Good in Toronto. Raised in a musical family -- their father and uncles made up Canadian roots music group the Good Brothers, who started playing professionally in the late '60s and continue to perform today -- the Sadies would put a creative spin on country rock, bringing elements of garage rock, surf and psychedelia into the mix.
Dallas and Travis refined their musical talents playing in the Good Brothers before teaming with drummer Mike Belitsky and bassist Sean Dean to form the Sadies. The quartet established themselves in both indie rock and Canadian roots music circles between their own recordings and a string of collaborative albums. The band's debut record Precious Moments was recorded by noted punk engineer Steve Albini and featured guest vocals by New Pornographers singer and alt-country solo star Neko Case
The band continued to demonstrate its versatility with both its sophomore effort Pure Diamond Gold that ranged from country twang to rollicking garage and surf and Red Dirt, the country-tinged collaboration with R&B legend Andre Williams that would be the first of several albums made with the singer. The group would ramp up its collaborative work in the 2000s, touring as the backing band for Case and Jon Spencer's cowpunk/rockabilly project Heavy Trash and recording albums with Mekons leader Jon Langford and X singer and bassist John Doe.
The band would continue its prolific output in the decade that followed, working with the Band's legendary vocalist and keyboard player Garth Hudson and Neil Young on Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of the Band in 2012, recording with the Tragically Hip's singer Gord Downie, playing live with British songwriter Robyn Hitchcock (the pairing appeared at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in 2015) and reuniting with the Good Brothers for the long-gestating effort The Good Family Album that also featured vocals by their mother Margaret.
During the COVID-19 shutdown, the group wrote and recorded songs for the follow-up to their acclaimed, atmospheric 2017 album Northern Passages. Sadly just months after their latest record's completion, the Sadies suffered a seismic blow last year when Dallas Good died suddenly at the young age of 48. His passing -- attributed to natural causes while under a doctor's care for a recently discovered heart condition -- was met with shock and disbelief by the global music community. Good's swan song with the band -- Colder Streams -- was released last summer to universal praise and stands as another triumphant display of the gifted quartet's wide-ranging sounds and Dallas Good's songwriting brilliance. For now, the Sadies are keeping his music alive and touring as a trio to celebrate his life and the band's final recording with him.
Earlier this year, the band recorded and released a new collaborative album with Canadian songwriter Rick White that had been in the planning stages before Good's untimely passing. For this show at the Great American Music Hall, the Sadies are joined by local luminary Sylvie Simmons. A veteran British music journalist who made her name as the Los Angeles correspondent for UK-based magazine Sounds, Simmons became one of the key documentarians of popular music of the era. While an early assignment covering a Black Sabbath tour would lead to a longtime focus on hard rock and metal (she would later be credited as the journalist who gave Van Halen, Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses early exposure), Simmons wrote about a broad scope of music, talking to such important figures as the Clash, Sex Pistols, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Muddy Waters, Frank Zappa, Tom Petty, and Michael Jackson.
She continued to work as a journalist for a variety of magazines through the '80s into the 1990s (and continues to write for MOJO magazine as contributing editor since its debut in 1993), published her first collection of short fiction as well as writing acclaimed books about French pop provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, country icon Johnny Cash, influential rocker Neil Young and poet-turned songwriter Leonard Cohen, most recently co-writing the memoir of Blondie singer Debbie Harry in 2019. Performing songs by Cohen on ukulele during a tour promoting that book led Simmons to branch out into writing her own music, releasing the delicate collection of songs entitled Sylvie in 2014. She has since issued the follow-up effort, Blue on Blue, in 2020.
The Sadies with Sylvie Simmons
Friday, June 7, 7:30 p.m. $25-$28
Great American Music Hall