Way Out West

Frank Lee Scarlett was the recording name used by Drew Birkett, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Kaslo, British Columbia. By the time he released Way Out West in 2001, Birkett had become part of the West Kootenay music community, recording and performing with musicians from Kaslo, Nelson and the communities around Kootenay Lake.

Birkett’s recorded history reaches back at least to 1994 with The Moonhogs’ Taste the Apple. His Bandcamp page features five songs from the release: ‘Silver Flyer’, ‘I’d Do Anything’, ‘Dance Around the Fire’, ‘Taste the Apple’ and ‘Come To Think Of It’. The material is credited to Night Swine Productions and dated September 1, 1994.

Way Out West came together over seven years. The earliest track, ‘Show Me the Highway’, was recorded at Kootenay Mountain Sound in 1994 with engineers Gary Waldie and Wayne Hoobanoff. Further sessions followed at Grohman Trax in Nelson in 1996, with Hoobanoff again engineering, and the album was finished at Chris Boode’s Sunkisser Studios in Proctor across 2000 and 2001. Birkett produced the record himself, played guitar and piano and sang lead. Ayle Sparkes played guitars, electric slide and Dobro, George McCuaig played bass, Lonnie Powell and Jerry Hamilton split the drums, Boode added organ, Jews harp and percussion, and Randall H. Kewen played mandolin.

All ten songs were written by Birkett, and the booklet identifies Frank Lee Scarlett as ‘AKA Drew Birkett’. Titles such as ‘Western Town’, ‘Show Me the Highway’, ‘Home in the Mountain’, ‘Hand on the Wheel’ and ‘Way Back Home’ carry a western Canadian sense of place, while acoustic and electric guitars, slide, Dobro, mandolin, organ and piano give the album its roots, folk, country and blues character. The closing song, ‘Mists of Avalon’, is dedicated to the memory of Birkett’s friend and ‘musical compatriot’ Dare Guthrie.

Birkett kept playing in Kaslo long after the record. He was a featured musician at Kaslo May Days in 2010, the 2017 festival billed Drew Birkett and his band, and in 2018 he returned as Drew Birkett and Friends.

In 2024 he played the Langham Cultural Society’s 50th anniversary celebration in Kaslo with The Frequent Liars, alongside Marty Lynch and two Way Out West players, drummer Jerry Hamilton and bassist George McCuaig.

-Robert Williston