Slow Country

Phil Boyer was born in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan in 1962, one of nine children of Rose and Felix Boyer. Music was part of family life from an early age. Boyer later recalled house parties at his parents’ home where relatives played music; several of his mother’s brothers were musicians, while his father and paternal grandfather were fiddlers. He began singing at about five years old and was entering talent contests while still a child.

Country music became his main direction. Although he had sung from an early age, Boyer did not begin playing guitar seriously until around 1980. By the mid-1980s he was living in Saskatoon and regularly entering competitions, with an important breakthrough coming when he won the talent contest at Back to Batoche Days in 1985, during the centennial year of the North-West Resistance. The event carried particular meaning for Boyer because of his Métis heritage and his family’s connection to the culture.

The win led to an opportunity with Winnipeg’s Sunshine Records, where Boyer recorded his debut album, Slow Country. Released in 1986, the album combined contemporary country material with four Boyer originals: ‘The Waltz’, ‘Louis Riel’, ‘Please Come Home’ and ‘Say You Love Me’.

Slow Country was recorded at Sunshine Sound Studios in Winnipeg with Wes Wilson engineering. Boyer was backed by Doug Yuel on drums, Paul Kelly on bass, Clint Dutiaume on lead guitar, fiddle and acoustic guitar, Craig Fotheringham on lead guitar, keyboards and synthesizers, and Art Alyea on steel guitar. Dutiaume was already well established through the C-Weed Band, while other members of the session group were active within Manitoba’s country-music community.

The original songs gave the album a more personal identity than a straightforward collection of country standards. ‘Louis Riel’ in particular reflected Boyer’s Métis background and connected naturally with the circumstances surrounding his breakthrough at Back to Batoche. A contemporary Windspeaker profile noted his controlled vibrato, versatility and songwriting while reporting on his efforts to promote the album through appearances including Country Music Week in Winnipeg and a return to Back to Batoche.

Music remained an important part of Boyer’s life long after Slow Country. Over time his work became closely connected with that of his son Dallas Boyer, who developed into a Métis and old-time fiddler after attending Back to Batoche as a young boy. Phil accompanied Dallas on guitar, and what began within the family developed into the long-running father-and-son act Dallas & Phil Boyer.

The pair performed at festivals, cultural gatherings, schools, dances, weddings and community events across Western Canada and into the United States. Their repertoire centred on Métis fiddle music and old-time traditions, with Phil generally providing guitar accompaniment while continuing to sing country material.

Back to Batoche remained an important part of Boyer’s musical life. In a 2015 interview he recalled attending the gathering from its earlier years and described Batoche as the Métis homeland. His later performances there represented a continuation of the family music he had grown up hearing, particularly the fiddle tradition passed down through his father and grandfather.

Nearly three decades after his first recording, Boyer returned to the studio with Turtle Island Music in Saskatoon. His album Waiting appeared in 2015 and marked his return to recording after many years. The ten-song collection included ‘Waiting’, ‘When I Opened Up the Show’, ‘Dance, Dance’, ‘God Has Taken an Angel Home’, ‘Second Fiddle’ and ‘Time Goes On’.

The recordings from Slow Country also found a later life. Turtle Island Music released Lookin’ Ahead digitally in 2018 using the same ten-song program as the original Sunshine album, including ‘Cowboy Rides Away’, ‘I’ve Been Around Enough to Know’, ‘Heavenly Bodies’, ‘The Slow Waltz’, ‘Louis Riel’, ‘Please Come Home to Me’, ‘Seven Spanish Angels’, ‘Say You Love Me’, ‘Wait a Little Longer’ and ‘She’s Not Really Cheating’. Earlier references indicate that the material had already circulated under the Looking Ahead title before the 2018 digital release.

Dallas and Phil Boyer continued appearing regularly on Saskatchewan’s cultural circuit. Documented performances included the Tapestrama Cultural Festival in Prince Albert, the SaskTel Indigenous Youth Awards of Excellence, Saskatoon’s ‘Walking and Healing Together’ gathering during Pope Francis’s 2022 visit to Canada, the Heritage Festival of Saskatoon and the 33rd Street Fair. By the mid-2020s, the father-and-son partnership had spanned roughly three decades.

Boyer’s career ultimately developed along two closely connected paths. Slow Country captured a young Saskatchewan country singer and songwriter emerging from the Prairie music scene of the 1980s, while his later work with Dallas returned directly to the Métis fiddle tradition that had surrounded him as a child. Across those decades, the common thread remained family, country music and Métis cultural life — from house parties in Saskatchewan, to Back to Batoche, to Sunshine Records, and eventually to a father and son carrying the music forward together.

-Robert Williston