Singer-songwriter Allen Dobb will perform in Williams Lake on Saturday, May 11, at Fox Mountain Brewery.
Dobb will feature songs from his new album Alone Together.
Two music videos from the new album were filmed in Clinton by Williams Lake photographer and videographer Rick Magnell.
“Black and White 1912 is a song about changing times on the Caribou Road,” Dobb said. “We shot the video in the old RCMP barn in Clinton. The set was just beautiful. Rick was great.”
Inspired by a photograph taken in 1912 when cars first started to use the Caribou Road and there was an accident near 153 Mile House, Dobb said it was taken at the end of using horse drawn freight wagons and the BX Stage.
“I was struck by the juxtaposition of the changing of technology and I had this vision for the song. It took a while for me to get it together but then I told it through the eyes of a guy in the photograph.”
Through his work in range management, he has viewed archival photographs, including some by Frank Swannell, one of B.C.’s most famous surveyors in the beginning of the 1900s.
“Every time I stay at the Cariboo Lodge in Clinton I’m looking at those old photographs,” he said. “I also loved the old museum in Williams Lake and used to go in there all the time.”
The video is a mix of Swannell’s historical photographs, Dobb playing the guitar and singing, either sitting in old barn or standing on the side of a grassy hill.
Dobb lives in Victoria, but he has worked in the Cariboo Chilcotin.
“I have been coming to the area for a long time,”he said, noting he worked on reconciliation and on recovery efforts after the 2017 wildfires, helping ranchers with rebuilding fences and damage assessments.
These days his work is focused in the Peace area of the province.
Dobb’s father went to high school in Quesnel and Dobb’s grandfather lived along the Barkerville Road where he raised certified seed potatoes.
“I always enjoy coming back to the Cariboo and Williams Lake. I love the area,” he said.
A musician for most of his life, Dobb began writing songs when he was young.
After returning from a trip to Africa, while working on his master’s degree, he knew he wanted to become a professional musician.
He pursued that passion for about 15 years, performing at festivals with his brother Cameron Dobb, also a musician.
Eventually he felt his music career was drying up so he returned to work in range management in 2007.
In recent years, he has been inspired to write songs again and expressed gratitude to Cameron for helping him with the new album.
“He has a studio in Vancouver and I have one in Victoria. We worked back and forth together - he plays so many instruments - and it turned out really well.”
Working on the project brought the brother close together again, Dobb said.
In Williams Lake, he will be performing solo for an intimate evening of song and story telling beginning at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets are available online on the Allen Dobb website and at the brewery, cash only, $20.
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