Where It’s At (WIA) is the Toronto Blues Society’s FREE weekly e-newsletter, bringing blues fans recent news from the Toronto blues community and beyond.

John’s Blues Picks is the monthly album review column by Toronto-based blues columnist, John Valenteyn. John Valenteyn is co-founder of the Toronto Blues Society, radio host on CIUT.FM and the Toronto Blues Society’s resident album reviewer. John’s Blues Picks (JBP) are collected monthly in the Toronto Blues Society’s monthly print newsletter, Maple Blues.

Monthly recommended listening by various guest contributors

Blues legend Otis Rush died September 29 and the blues world mourns. He made a big impression wherever he played and long-time blues fans in Toronto can remember every time he came to town. Born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Otis Rush moved to Chicago in the late 1940s and quickly began to make a name for himself playing in South and West side clubs. He helped define a distinctive West Side Chicago sound with his unique left-handed technique which allowed him to bend notes in ways few other bluesmen did.He won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1999 for “Any Place I’m Going,” and he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984. Otis Rush continued to play and tour throughout the 1990s and into early 2000. But he suffered a serious stroke in 2003 and never took the stage again.