Despite being surrounded by music and musicians while growing up in Winnipeg, Brackendale’s Cam Salay says he was the last person in his family to become interested in learning to play an instrument.
“I was more of a sports kid,” said Salay, who went on to play banjo with Juno Award-winning band The Paperboys for nine years. “But my mom played piano and taught choirs all her life. My dad plays saxophone and played in bands when I was growing up. They’d always be rehearsing in the house.”
Salay’s brother was also an accomplished guitarist, and his sister earned music degrees in university and became a music teacher.
“In my family, she is actually the most advanced musically,” he said. “But my brother is the most naturally gifted musician. He can play anything just by listening to it.”
Salay didn’t show a real interest in music until he was well into high school.
“I was more into hockey and all that,” he said. “But when I was around 17, I realized some people played music for a living… that was their job… and it became a goal for me.”
That’s when he discovered the banjo.
“It started with the Beverly Hillbillies,” he said. “But then I started going to the Winnipeg Folk Festival and fell in love with that kind of music.”
He played in a couple of small folk bands around Winnipeg before moving to Whistler in 1987.
“My brother had moved out here in 1984 and you know how it goes, I came to visit and ski, and ended up staying 20 years,” Salay said.
It was in Whistler that he met his future band mates in The Paperboys, sitting in with them one night on banjo before being invited into the group.
Now living in Brackendale, regularly performing around the Sea to Sky Corridor and teaching a new generation of musicians, Salay has recruited his family to join him onstage in a couple of upcoming shows.
On Saturday (Dec. 27) at 10 p.m., Salay and brother Joe Jr. will be at the Howe Sound Inn and Brew Pub as The Salay Brothers.
“We’ll be playing some bluegrass, some folk and a bit of Neil Young,” he said. “But, really, it’s just a warm-up.”
On Jan. 4, Salay and Joe Jr. join their mother and father from Winnipeg, along with Salay’s wife Colleen, at the Brackendale Art Gallery for a special Salay Family Band show.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like this out here,” he said. “When I go back to Winnipeg to visit my folks, we do get together for what they call ‘Jam with Cam’ in my father’s back yard. But that usually includes other people like my aunt and my dad’s band mates.”
Salay said his family band plans to play an eclectic mix of music ranging from bluegrass to rock, and he expects his 83-year-old father to show off his saxophone skills.
“My dad loves to improvise on the horn,” he said. “And my mom just recently picked up the bass, so she’ll be on bass for the show. Colleen will be singing.”
In keeping with the “family” theme, sisters Cameron and Lindsay Larson, both Salay’s guitar students, will open the show.
Tickets for the Salay Family Band show are $15 and available at the BAG or Xocolatl. There’s no cover for the Salay Brothers’ show.
