It'll be a touching final performance for Luke Doucet and The White Falcon, as his wife and daughter will join him on stage.
Doucet and The White Falcon band will be performing at the 12th annual Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival Aug. 13 from 6: 10 to 6: 55 p.m. at the Garden Stage.
"It's the one performance I've been looking forward to all summer," Doucet said in a phone interview from Calgary. "I'll be up there with my wife and daughter on the West Coast, all together and we get to play an outdoor festival in the greater Vancouver area. It's very exciting to me."
Doucet said it will be the final performance ever with him and The White Falcon, as he and his wife are moving on together to form a new band.
"We're putting our solo careers on hold" Doucet said of his guitarist wife, Melissa McClelland, who will form Whitehorse. "We have a record coming out this September."
Doucet has made a career in music for the past 15 years plus, including a tour with close friend Sarah McLachlan.
He describes his sound as a bit rock and roll, blues and country. "It's equal parts," he said. "It's a bit of all these things."
Since he was four years old, Doucet has been exposed to iconic musicians such as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson and the like - thanks to his family, who would play that music loudly throughout the day.
"I didn't choose for them to influence me," Doucet explained. "I would hear that music at the table eating Shreddies with my mom and sister.
"Everything I hear musically influences me. You don't choose your influences. Your influences choose you."
And like his influences, Doucet has also witnessed what he calls a devolution in his music.
When he learned to play his guitar, it was right around the time the alternative movement hit.
"When I first played guitar, I was so deeply up the (butt) of my guitar, I didn't hear the music, just the guitar," he said. "I wouldn't think about songs until the '90s and late '80s, when the alternative movement hit, and it was all about deconstruction."
He was very influenced at the time by bands such as the Flaming Lips.
Now he's "back to the cradle" and making music in a lot of different ways.
"The music I do now is more obvious," he explained, adding that as musicians age they don't try as hard to find their sound. "It sounds like it's coming from a certain time or place."
Doucet used the example of Dylan and Waits, who don't make boring music because they've had such long musical careers in the spotlight.
"Not to sound cliché, but things have become more simple musically for me," he noted. "There's something about somebody who's not trying so hard."
Doucet noted how much everyone's really looking forward to the Aug. 13 performance with his wife and 15-year-old daughter, Chloe Doucet-Winkelman, who will also be playing the guitar.
"I know Chloe is excited. It's going to be really special."
The festival runs from 2 to 10 p.m. on Aug. 13 at Deer Lake Park. Tickets are available until Aug. 12. See www.burnabyblues festival.com or call 604-205-3000 for more information. .
Other performers at this year's show include headliner k.d. lang, John Mayall and Imelda May.
