A musician, painter and poet, there are few art forms that Vancouver based artist C.R. Avery has not dabbled in one form or another.
Originally from Ontario, Avery’s taste in music and art has always been diverse as it has been avant-garde.
“I’m tragically hip-hop, I grew up on the outskirts of Kingston and I make my living through the arts,” Avery said. “There are not many genres I don’t like. I think it’s more like ‘What genres took me the longest to come around to?’”
Much of the music he now likes or incorporates into his own albums, of which he has 18 under his belt currently, he came into contact with by chance. As such Avery isn’t just a beatboxer, a jazz player or country artist; he is a performer.
Last Tuesday at the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Centre for well over an hour he held his audience spellbound with a mix of poetry, soulful crooning on a piano, country music and a unique fusion of beatboxing and a harmonica. Never one to shy away from the audience, Avery frequently engaged with the 50- some concertgoers that packed the room.
Blurring the lines between performance and conversation, performer and audience member, Avery delivered a unique and spontaneous night of entertainment those who attended will not soon forget. For himself, Avery said that the older he gets the more he mixes his performance up, no longer tour by tour but set by individual set.
“For me, it’s about the storytelling and some stories just work so good in country-western, that beat is unabrasive. Country shuffle is all like chicka-chicka-chicka and you can talk over it. It’s great,” Avery said. “Some things just lead to hip hop beats, you know, and some just don’t need anything at all.”
Opening for Avery and joining him on stage was Prince George native and accordion player Danny Bell. Together the two artists brought the night to a truly climactic moment with an encore called for, and answered, at the end of the set.
“You just try to put the pedal to the metal and try to create something beautiful and what the audience takes away from it, that’s their business,” Avery said.
patrick.davies@wltribune.com
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