GOING LIVE AT LONG LAST

JJ Voss can't wait to take his tunes on the road

JJ Voss is rolling up his sleeves.

The veteran singer-songwriter — anxious for his second dose of COVID-19 vaccine — can hardly wait to get back to work in front of live audiences after having to settle for a long-distance relationship with his fans over the past 15 months.

“I'm pretty much done with the virtual concerts at this point; I think my audience is fatigued of that,” Voss said this week from his Regina home.

“I'm cautiously optimistic and I'm booking kind of full-steam ahead right now for summer and fall. You set yourself up for a potential letdown (if the situation worsens). But we do have to be booked two to three months in advance so you pretty much have to go for it and hope for the best.”

Voss, who accepts bookings through his website ( jjvoss.com), is already scheduled for a number of backyard-type shows in addition to some other pending announcements. His smaller private acoustic concerts don't require a band or a large crew, which makes it easier to obey COVID protocols.

“I'm very strict to make sure that whatever shows I'm doing are going to be adhering to whatever guidelines are in place because I just can't fathom going further backwards again,” he said. “I don't want anybody to get sick at one of my shows and I want this thing to end already. We've accepted that we kind of have to diminish our expectations for the amount of income or the amount of people we can play in front of. Now the trick is just to play and get in front of people and start to work back to some sort of normal.”

Voss has been waiting for a return to normal since well before the COVID -19 pandemic. A serious back issue in late 2016 led to major surgery and left him bedridden for an extended period of time.

Unable to return to a full schedule for over a year, Voss eventually completed his third album — Come Along With Me — but the release in March of 2020 came just days before the initial COVID lockdown.

Having to postpone his comeback tour was yet another “exercise in patience.”

“(Being patient) was never really one of my strong suits,” Voss said. “When I had to lay down and wait for surgery for a few months, that was a tough pill to swallow and I didn't know how to do it. But I just kept saying `It's going to be (good) next year; I just have to go through this and ride it out.' Then the next year came and we wrote the record and got ready to release it and (COVID hit) just as it's coming out.

“You feel unlucky but then you look around and realize you're not on an island. There's a lot of other people that are just like you and doing what they can to keep things going (in a pandemic).”

Voss found that maintaining a sense of humour was the best medicine during a difficult period of his career.

Unfortunately, laughter doesn't pay the bills.

You feel unlucky but then you look around and realize you're not on an island.

As music royalties dry up in the digital streaming era, Voss's main source of income is from live shows. He focused on virtual performances during the pandemic because it was “the only path forward to connect with people and to try to promote the record.”

“I got used to it and I think I got better at it,” he said, “but there's definitely no substitute for being in front of a live audience.”

Voss's latest online show was a pre-recorded performance in Regina as part of last weekend's Feskival concert. The event raised enough money for a donation of 8,700 meals to the Regina Food Bank.

It also gave Voss another chance to promote Come Along With Me after picking up roots album-ofthe-year and male artist-of-theyear honours from the Saskatchewan Country Music Association.

“I don't feel my record got its due as far as being able to get out and tour it,” he added. “I am starting to write new material, but I'm not giving up on it. This next year I'm going to be playing as much (as possible) for as many people as possible.”