Convergent evolution-the natural phenomenon that gave us marsupial wolves and tigers, as well as bats, birds, and pterodactyls-is alive and well in the arts. Or so it seems after listening to Joel Fafard's new CD, ”¦and another thing”¦.

West Coast residents might be forgiven for thinking that Fafard had been rather impressed by Jesse Zubot and Steve Dawson before starting work on his second all-instrumental release. Fafard's trio, which also includes violist Richard Moody and acoustic bassist Gilles Fournier, does sound a lot like the Zubot & Dawson partnership did in its earlier days, but the Regina-based guitarist says he'd hit on his approach well before encountering his Vancouver peers.

"I had already made my first instrumental CD, Rocking Horse, when I first heard their music," he explains, on the line from his Saskatchewan home. "But when I did, I went, like, 'Oh, no!' They must have similar ears."

They must, indeed. It's probable that both Fafard and Dawson would cite American fingerstylist Leo Kottke as a formative influence, and both guitarists have expressed their love of Nashville sideman Jerry Douglas's work on lap steel and Dobro. But Fafard-who released three CDs as a singer-songwriter before becoming obsessed with instrumental music-traces his style back to hometown hero Jack Semple, a Regina jazz-and-blues virtuoso.

"He played with his fingers, and I was intrigued by that when I was just getting into guitar," says Fafard. "And so I started playing with my fingers, too. I was so serious about it I was even getting my nails done at the beauty shop, with the acrylic stuff they had there."

The young guitarist was also serious enough to make a trip out West to enrol in the well-regarded jazz program at Capilano College, an experience that did not start out in an auspicious fashion. Jazz, you see, is normally played with a pick, and Fafard's instructors didn't approve of his unconventional approach.

"In fact, they told me to stuff it right away," he confides. "But I said, 'Look, I'll show you that I can play the scales this way,' and they gave in.

"I think it was a Bruce Cockburn concert, though, that really set me off into the acoustic and fingerstyle thing," he adds.

Today, Fafard's style-which can be heard at the St. James Hall, on Sunday (March 19) as part of a "Wheatstock" double bill with Regina songwriter Eileen Laverty-continues to nod to jazz, Cockburn, and Kottke. But at heart he's a country boy, and his best tunes seem like a natural extension of the Americana genre.

"I feel like that's what's going on," he says. "I feel like I'm grabbing bits from bluegrass, old-timey country, and even a little bit of Celtic music, and then regurgitating them in my own voice. There's definitely a modern thing there, yet I don't feel like I've totally lost the traditional sense of it either."

Now that he's discovered his own instrumental voice, will Fafard ever return to writing lyrics?

"Well, I don't know what my problem is, because people like my singing," he says, laughing. "But I'm so happy with those instrumental records that that's all I want to do."