Laurie Sarkadi is one of the many amazing artists that called the North home. To start off our True North Tale I asked Laurie how her musical journey got started,
well I did play piano for a very long time as a little girl I took conservatory lessons for years, and my father w hen I was growing up, he used to play guitar and sing country songs and occasionally, I would sing along with him at small performances at the high school where he taught us, things like that, but as a performing musician, I only came around to doing that. After I turned 40 It was very late in life, and I bought a guitar and started to teach myself how to play guitar and within a few months after that I started writing songs
Laurie’s been living an off the grid lifestyle for over three decades, here’s Laurie talking about how living an off the grid lifestyle and having a lifelong love of music inspires her
I think living very close to nature and living off grid, as I have been in the North for so long, really inspired your creativity, in the sense that there’s a lot less clutter in your day, in some ways you’re just there you’re just walking on the rocks and looking at the birds and it does sort of, it’s like a palette for a painter, you know it does open things up to your creativity, I felt musically, I loved music since I was tiny, you know, and I listened to music all my life and saved my money up as a teenager to buy the best stereo equipment that sort of you know audio file part of me has always been strong so I guess it’s just a marriage of those two things
Laurie got the chance to perform with one of her sons that Folk On The Rocks this year, and when I spoke to Lori before the performance. She said it felt like something right out of the Partridge Family
When I was growing up, that was one of my favorite TV shows of what this family that had a band together and i feel like I’m reliving a little bit of my childhood in that I get to play music with my son.