Terra Lightfoot at the Raccoon Motel -- April 11.
Thursday, April 11, 6 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
Her 2023 album Healing Power hailed by Americana Highways for its "freshness and consistent melodic assets," Canadian folk and roots-rock singer/songwriter Terra Lightfoot headlines an April 11 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, her famed touring partners over the years including The Posies, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo, and, in his lone Canadian date for the 2018 Outlaw Music Festival, country icon Willie Nelson.
Lightfoot was raised in Waterdown, Ontario, a rural community in the northern part of Hamilton, and the artist has a multi-octave mezzo-soprano singing voice that has been compared to those of Joan Jett and Dusty Springfield. Her electric-guitar style, meanwhile, has been described as similar to John Fogerty and Van Morrison – Lightfoot was featured in Guitar Player Magazine in 2018 along with her SG "Veronica" – while the songs for which she's best known are centrally bluesy-rock power ballads. In the early 2010s, Lightfoot was a member of the Dinner Belles, a group of country-folk performers from Hamilton. She performed as a guitarist and vocalist for the group's 2014 studio album The River & the Willow, having previously appeared on the outfit's self-released 2011 debut West Simcoe County. It was through indie-music label Sonic Unyon that the singer/songwriter and guitarist released her first, self-titled solo album, which was released in 2011.
Her second solo album, 2014's Every Time My Mind Runs Wild, saw Lightfoot collaborate with indie rockers Gus van Go, Werner F, and Liam O'Neil (known for his performances with the group The Stills). The album's producers, van Go and F, were credited with bringing a more catchy, hook-heavy, power pop style, and in 2017, Lightfoot debuted two new recordings. That February, she released the orchestral collaboration Live in Concert, and during late-summer, she came out with "Paradise," the lead single from her third studio album New Mistakes. The recording would go on to receive praise from critics at No Depression, PopMatters, Guitar Player, Twangville, and The Boot, and New Mistakes also earned Lightfoot a nomination for a 2018 JUNO Award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year. The album's single "Paradise" also earned producer van Go a 2018 JUNO nomination for Recording Engineer of the Year, as well as a long-list nomination for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize. In August of 2020, Lightfoot released a new single, "Paper Thin Walls," from her fourth studio album Consider the Speed, and last year, fifth studio recording Healing Power led PopMatters to rave that "the vibrancy of her performances reveals the best way to deal with life’s difficulties is with a smile or even a laugh."
Terra Lightfoot brings her tour to Davenport on April 11 with an additional set by the Velies, admission to the 6 p.m. concert is $19.84, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
