Submitted Photo

Canadian recording artist Jake Matthews serenades the crowd during an outdoor house concert at the Airdrie home of K-Leigh Scofield and Cheryl Backhouse, Aug. 25. The concert with Matthews was the eighth that Scofield and Backhouse have hosted in two years.

view all photos (-count-)

Local resident hosts country music's finest

A local Airdrie resident is turning her home into one of Airdrie’s live music venues.

For the past two years, K-Leigh Scofield has hosted some of Canadian country music’s biggest and newest names right in her own backyard and living room.

Scofield hosts concerts at her Airdrie home and has seen the likes of Adam Gregory, Willie Mack, local artist Chris LeBlanc and Canadian County Music Award (CCMA) male artist of the year nominee Chad Brownlee entertain her friends and neighbours.

“(The concerts) are really fun, small, intimate gatherings,” Scofield said. “The artists are really interactive and they chat with the audience. You get to hear the stories behind the songs they’ve written, which is a lot of fun.”

However, the concert’s are a recent facet of Scofield’s lifelong love for country music. She grew up in Nova Scotia before moving to Airdrie with her family in 2000.

While attending George McDougall High School, Scofield ran the entertainment section of the school’s newspaper. By the age of 18, she’d interviewed Johnny Reid, Paul Brandt and Jason Blaine. Back then, she had her sights set on becoming a cosmetologist, but a meeting with Canadian recording artist Jessie Farrell convinced Scofield that she had a future in the music industry.

She created her own website, K-leigh’s Korner, on which she posts concert reviews, interviews with Canadian musicians and bi-weekly video blogs, which have recently been discussing the upcoming 2012 CCMAs.

The awards show is being held in Saskatoon in September, and it’s an event Scofield has been attending since she was a teenager. In the past 12 years, she and her mother, Cheryl Backhouse, have only missed one show.

The 24-year-old said her mom was one of the driving forces behind Scofield pursuing a career in the music industry. The two have shared a passion for country music since Scofield was a child and Backhouse was more than willing to help her daughter host the backyard concerts.

“It’s something we both came up with,” Backhouse said. “We heard some artists were doing house concerts. Neither of us knew what they entailed, so we started checking into it. We decided to do the first one to see how it went and it transpired from there.”

Scofield contacts the artists through their management teams and charges $20 to $25 per person which goes to the artist, but Backhouse said they are considering having guests bring along a non-perishable food item to be donated to the Airdrie Food Bank.

For Scofield, the concerts help her support Canadian musicians and for Backhouse, she gets to help her daughter achieve her dream of working in the entertainment industry.

“It’s something she’s always been interested in,” Backhouse said. “It’s something she’s passionate about. Ultimately, she would like to be working within the industry at some level. We’re just not sure what level that is. As long as she’s doing something she loves, it doesn’t matter (what level it is).”

Tammy Cryderman is a regular at the outdoor concerts, having attended eight in total, and said they’re a different experience than a normal concert.

“It’s a more relaxed setting,” she said. “You can have one-on-one conversations with the artists after. They come and sit next to you in your lawn chair and chat with you. You don’t get that when you go to (an arena) concert.”

Scofield’s next concert is scheduled for the end of September when Jamie Warren comes to town, but she said that all of the artists who have performed at her home have expressed interest in returning for an encore show.

She also said a live music venue featuring country artists is something Airdrie needs.

“I think it would be amazing if Airdrie could get something in where we could have artists like this come in, whether it’s for an acoustic set or a full band,” she said. “It’s insane that our living room and backyard has turned into a live music venue in Airdrie.”

The Jamie Warren concert is set for Sept. 28. For more information, visit www.kleighskorner.webs.com or K-Leigh’s Korner on Facebook.