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Graham teams up with his mentor for Performing Arts Centre show

Rising star or not, there’s no strings attached to guitar prodigy Calum Graham’s musical career.
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High River guitar whiz Calum Graham (right) joins virtuoso Don Ross for a Sunday performance in Stettler.

Rising star or not, there’s no strings attached to guitar prodigy Calum Graham’s musical career.

“I’m definitely not going to stop doing it, that’s for sure,” said the 22-year-old Graham, one of Alberta’s bright lights on the international music stage.

“I’m already planning on what I’m going to be doing from here with my next album. I just picked up a Gibson 57 Les Paul the other day, and I’m setting up a band and doing a new blues, funk, Motown kind of project. So, already thinking ahead to what I’m going to be doing in different projects I want to be involved with, and touring. What I’m going to be busy with for this year, at least.”

Graham’s latest tour, in collaboration with his inspiration and mentor Don Ross, stops in Stettler on Sunday for a 2 p.m. show at the Performing Arts Centre.

“I played one show in Stettler years ago, and I know Dave Goodwin from there,” Graham said in an interview Monday. “We were in touch and he heard about the (Graham and Ross) CD release, and the next thing we knew, we were lining up a show in Stettler. That’s kind of how it came to be, was mostly through Dave and wanting to help out and put this on.”

For almost a decade, Graham has been performing on stage, from small venues in his hometown of High River as a teenager to concert halls in major cities.

“I always had the passion for music,” he said. “I guess I never really thought about making it a career until I was already kind of doing that, actually.

“I just kept playing and playing. Eventually, when I heard Don Ross’ music — who I’m going to be playing with in Stettler — that kind of changed everything that I was focusing on and doing. I was kind of doing metal music before that, and when I heard Don’s music is when I started doing acoustic, and at least from then on, that’s when I knew that’s what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.

“I started playing this style around (age) 13 or 14, and was performing around, I would say, 14, 15, 16.”

While other children might have been playing sports, or getting in trouble, his game became music. He fashioned the guitar and found his niche.

“Well, I’m glad that I did find that at an early age,” Graham reflected. “It kept me out of trouble, for sure. Yeah, as soon as I found that, that’s really all that I wanted to be doing, so I was just staying home and practising and writing music, and playing.

“I was still going to school, but rather than going out on Friday nights, like all my friends did, I’d be at home practising and trying to improve on my instrument.”

That approach continued through his teenage years, “and even till this day,” he said.

He rotates between High River and Toronto, where he has “my own little studio.” He was finishing an album — called 12:34 — with Ross in Toronto last spring when unprecedented flooding ripped High River and elsewhere in southern Alberta.

Music helped in the healing process as the massive cleanup began, along with fundraising relief.

“I came back (home) in late August and did a bunch of flood-benefit concerts in our basement, actually, that was flooded,” Graham said. “We had a bunch of people over for that and raised money for the town.

“I kind of did my part to help out and give back to the town as much as I could. It felt really good in my heart to be back here and helping out like that. I got to give some money to my guitar luthier who’s built me a guitar, and is building me a guitar right now, who had a crisis with the flooding that happened at his place, too.”

From such homespun happenings to world travels, Graham’s music has touched many people. He’s now touring Canada with Ross, and they plan to do likewise in Germany this spring.

As for the Stettler show, it sounds like a guitar summit of sorts.

“It’s definitely lots of crazy acoustic guitar, and Don and I both play … actually, every song we wrote on the album is in a different tuning,” Graham said. “So we use lots of different sounds. I just think we’re going to be playing acoustic that (show), but we’re also going to be doing duets, and some solos, and also singing a couple of songs, so there’ll be great variety throughout.”

Tickets for the Stettler performance are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. They’re available at Pfeiffer House of Music in Stettler or by calling Goodwin at 403-742-3602.

editor@stettlerindependent.com