By her own account she was kicking to the beat of a bass drum in the womb and got her first guitar at the age of 12.
From there, Calgary-based singer/songwriter Netty Mac hasn’t looked back and this past weekend she was one of the privileged artists to play the Cochrane Lions Club Rodeo concert on Sept. 3.
“It was a lot of fun,” Mac said of the event. “It was a nice crowd that was very receptive. We played a lot of original music which I wasn’t sure how that would go over but it was a success.”
She owes a debt to one of the other acts who performed that night – Jason Cote and Rolling Thunder –for giving her and her band mates the chance to strut their stuff.
Both groups had performed together once before at a benefit concert for victims of the 2011 Slave Lake wildfire.
“We did that fundraiser together,” Mac remembered. “The organizers said they were looking for a band that could play all different types of music so it would be engaging and get the crowd going. I guess (Jason) remembered our 45-minute set and recommended us to the rodeo organizers.”
Organizers went to check out a gig Mac was playing in Calgary and were so impressed they signed a contract on the spot, sealing the deal.
For Mac, who describes her style as country infused with 1950s rock and roll, the concert was a homecoming of sorts as she had once been a Cochrane resident from 1996 to 1999.
“To be honest, I haven’t really played in Cochrane much at all,” she admitted. “I played the Legion a couple of times but that was it, so when we did the gig last weekend it was nice to see a positive reaction and how upbeat everyone was.
“There were no altercations, people were just playing and having fun.”
Does this mean she’s be playing more Cochrane gigs in the future?
“Absolutely,” she said. “However, there seems to be budget constraints in Cochrane when I was talking to a couple of club owners, but we’re definitely going to look into coming here again in 2017.”
In the meantime, Mac has set her sights on recording a follow-up to her 2012 debut album, Rock My World, but at the moment financing the project is the only barrier.
“The songs are there,” she said. “It’s just budgeting, which is paramount to this stage of the process.”
According to Mac, she’s too country for rock bars and too rock for country bars, which has caused her some grief in her career, but she’s not changing who she is because of the market.
“It’s the kind of music I grew up with, but no one is searching for that kind of music right now,” she said. “I write more country than anything but perform more rock than anything, so it’s a tough egg to crack.”