Brokop and Jefferson bring music history to life

Photo: Paul Jefferson and Lisa Brokop

Paul Jefferson and Lisa Brokop, stars of the double bill coming to Oliver?s Venables theater this October, have both pivoted their careers to honor the greats that came before them.

Husband-and-wife team Lisa Brokop and Paul Jefferson, country music stars who have both made names for themselves as performers and songwriters, have now come together to honour two of their greatest inspirations: Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Sr. at an upcoming Venables Theatre show in Oliver.

Lisa Brokop: The Patsy Cline Project and Hank Lives is a dream double bill for fans of traditional country and turn-of-the-millenium pop-country alike, and it’s likely to appeal to anyone who enjoys a good deep dive into the history of a musical legend.

The name of Brokop’s half of the show came to be “because it really was a project,” Brokop explained, “researching just who Patsy Cline was and who wrote the songs, and some of the stories behind why she recorded them. Things like that. And I think people really enjoy hearing some of the history behind it.”

Brokop, who grew up in Surrey, BC, was signed to Capitol Records at 19 years old and quickly found success in the country music scene that flourished throughout the 1990s, even earning a nomination for the Academy of Country Music’s new female vocalist award in 1995. She also developed a reputation as a talented songwriter and provided songs to Reba McEntire, Terri Clark, and Pam Tillis.

By 2016, however, Brokop felt like it was time for a change. “I had gotten to a point in my career when I was wanting to do something a little different, you know, maybe reinvent myself a tiny bit. And I’ve always loved traditional country music – that’s my roots, that’s what I grew up listening to, and those are the songs that I always come back to, to sing.”

In fact, Brokop often sat in with local bands at that time and she wound up singing those old songs because everyone in the band would know them and every crowd would enjoy them. The reception was so positive that she decided she had found the new direction her career needed and performed her first handful of Patsy Cline tribute concerts.

Since then, Brokop has toured her Patsy Cline Project both in Canada and south of the border, including a series of shows in the US Midwest that she recalls as being particularly successful. These are not, Brokop made clear, impersonator concerts. She does not wear any costumes or attempt to sing in Cline’s unique style.

“One of the things I tell people right off the top of the show is that I’m not here to be Patsy Cline,” she said. “I know some people do that and that’s just how they choose to do it, but I wanted to just be me and do my interpretation of her music and honour her as the legend she was.”

She cheekily added that she can’t seem to style her hair the way Cline did during her career, so treating the evenings as a combination of education and appreciation was always the best way for her to progress.

Photo: Venables Theatre

Jefferson’s “Hank Lives” more closely resembles a traditional impersonator show, with its promotional material boasting that his performance is so “incredibly accurate” that “you’ll think he’s back.”

He developed those chops by playing Hank Williams in a staging of “Lost Highway” in California. The experience inspired longtime singer-songwriter Jefferson, who has written songs for Aaron Tippin and Keith Urban, to combine his performance with stories from Williams’s life and take it on the road as a tribute to one of his heroes.

Brokop certainly seems to have gotten the inspiration boost she needed when she started the Patsy Cline Project, as she’s recently released a new single called “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Heels” and her first solo album since 2008’s “Beautiful Tragedy” is also on the way.

Like the Patsy Cline Project, both of these works are dedicated to honouring those Brokop refers to as “the legendary ladies of country music.” The single is a rewrite of George Jones’s 1984 song “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” which celebrated the legacy of many male country artists but failed to mention any women.

Jefferson and Brokop also have another double act, the Jeffersons. They have released two albums under that name, 2011’s Vol. 1 and a collection of Christmas standards in 2015 called It’s Cold Outside.

The Patsy Cline Project and Hank Lives comes to Oliver’s Venables Theatre on Saturday, October 7 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at venablestheatre.ca.