
British Columbia crooner Alan Moberg will perform at St. Andrew’s United Church, 315 Fitzwilliam Street, Nanaimo, at 7:30 pm on Saturday, March 26, 2011. Tickets are available in advance at West Coast Classic Floral, Lobelia’s Lair, Fascinating Rhythm, Tom Lee Music, St. Andrew’s United Church office, or at the door on the night of the concert for $20. Alan Moberg has been painting vivid pictures of the province he loves for four decades, and along the way he has released 16 albums and been inducted into the BC Country Music Hall of Fame for his western roots and country gospel music.
“When I was young” says Moberg, “I heard many songs about places in the US or back East, but very few songs about British Columbia. One of my missions has been to write these songs about BC and her people. Western roots is music that draws on all the aspects of life in the west – the coast and the fisherman, the country and the cowboys, the beauty of the land and the power of the sea, the dignity and warmth of the people.”
Alan Moberg’s concerts are rich and satifying, joyous and uplifting. He puts smiles in people’s hearts. He sings of traditional western themes like bravery, innocence, and survival. He has many songs about his admiration for the first peoples and the cross cultural friendships that exist in this beautiful land we share. Of course, a relationship with God often went hand in hand with survival living in the West, and Alan’s Amazing Grace or Whispering Hope could as easily be heard in the early days.
Howard White, publisher of Raincoast Chronicles says “Moberg does for BC’s interior ranchland and coastal rainforest what Ian Tyson and Stan Rogers did for the Great Lakes.” Like many of his heroes such as Johnny Cash, Alan Moberg has walked the long hard road of life and has known when to ask for a helping hand. As a result, good old fashioned country gospel music is part of his repertoire. His song This Could Be the Day has been sung in choirs from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Abbotsford, BC (where it was performed by the Mennonite Men’s Choir). Last summer Alan headlined the new Country Gospel Music Festival at Providence Farm in Duncan. He is also host of his own radio show, The Alan Moberg Show, which can be heard live on Wednesdays at noon on CFSI from Salt Spring Island.
This concert in its series of Catch the Spirit is a fundraiser for historic St. Andrew’s United Church which needs to raise $750,000 over the next three years, with half of that going for a very badly needed new roof to cover the 151-year-old structure. Allison Crowe and Gary Fjellgard have already performed here this fall and winter. “It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful” says Crowe of the sanctuary. “The music resonates so well. It is an acoustic jewel.” Listed in the Historic Places of Canada registry, the church is used as much by the community as by the congregation.