23rd Maple Blues Awards

Winners Announced!

On Monday, February 4th 2020, the gala evening for the 23rd Maple Blues Awards at Koerner Hall celebrated artists from coast-to-coast and featured rousing performances from nominees. Three artists took home two awards – Kingston’s Miss Emily won awards for Female Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year, New Brunswick’s Matt Andersen took home trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year and Acoustic Act of the Year while Montreal’s Dawn Tyler Watson was awarded Recording/Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.

For only the second time in Maple Blues Awards history, there were tied winners in two categories – Harpdog Brown and Steve Marriner both won Harmonica Player of the Year and Chris Whiteley and Mat “Moose” Mousseau each won the award for Horn Player of the Year. The Blues with a Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) was awarded to Montreal-based Michael Jerome Browne, whose long and illustrious career has seen him tour around the world, recording seven albums and guesting on countless others, and recently was nominated for Blues Album of the Year at the upcoming JUNO Awards. Also honoured for a long career dedicated to the preservation and promotion of blues music was Toronto Blues Society’s own Brian Blain, who received the Blues Booster of the Year Award.

A new addition to the Maple Blues Awards program is the inaugural Sapphire Video Award. Sapphire has one single category and both live performance and staged production/interpretive videos were accepted. The winner of the Sapphire Video Award was Miss Emily for her video for “Hold Back The River” with the runners up announced as Terra Hazelton for her video for “Anybody’s Baby” and Lucas Haneman Express for their video for the song “Ms. McGrim”. The winning artist received a cash prize of $1,500 while the two runners up each received $250.

A collaboration between The Toronto Blues Society and Paul Reddick, the sixth annual COBALT Prize for Contemporary Blues Composition Award is to promote blues music through exploration of its form. The winning composition was judged on its ability to creatively utilize blues traditions within the broad contemporary musical landscape. The winner of the Cobalt Prize for Contemporary Blues Composition was Rich Junco for his song “Cope”, while the first runner up was Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes for their song “Cruel Thing” and a tied win for the second runner up was Joe Nolan for “Paranoia Day 36 Blues” and Loryn Taggart for “In My Company”. A cash prize of $1000 was presented to the winner and the runners up each received $250.

The 23rd annual Maple Blues Awards not only featured heart-warming moments and great speeches from the winners, but the audience was treated to exciting performances from Big Dave McLean, Matchedash Parish, Miss Emily, Dawn Tyler Watson, Michael Jerome Browne, and the evening’s hostess Raha Javanfar (Bad Luck Woman) with special guests, students from The Regent Park School of Music, all backed by the awards house band The Maple Blues Band.

For full list of winners, please click here.

ABOUT THE MAPLE BLUES AWARDS

The Maple Blues Awards is Canada’s national blues awards program. Its goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outstanding achievement in the field. Winners in all categories (excluding the instrumental categories*) are decided by blues fans across Canada. Voting occurs online each November.

Nominating Panel & Steering Committee.  The nominees are selected by a distinguished panel of approximately 50 blues experts who form the MBA Nominating Panel. Co-chaired by the steering committee consisting of Terry Parsons, Yanick Theriault, John Valenteyn and Brant Zwicker, the panel includes radio hosts, journalists, and festival organizers regionally distributed across Canada. Members of the Nominating Panel are not eligible for any of the awards.

*Instrumental Categories.  Winners in the guitar, harmonica, piano/keyboards, horn, drum, and bass categories are not open for public vote. Instrumental or “craft” categories are determined by a panel of experts drawn from the nominating panel.

The awards program is proudly organized by the Toronto Blues Society. 

MAPLE BLUES AWARDS CHANGES

Toronto Blues Society has been receiving valuable input from the members of the Canadian blues community regarding the Maple Blues Awards procedures and voting, and as such, have been developing new policies and protocol to ensure the Maple Blues Award system is responsive and evolving, thanks to the feedback gathered from across Canada. Please note the following changes:

• Nominating Panel Changes: Each year, Toronto Blues Society reviews and assesses the members of the nominating panel for the Maple Blues Awards. This year there have been significant new additions to the panel from many different facets of the national blues scene. For the current list of panel members please scroll down.
• Musician Advisory Committee: This year Toronto Blues Society has a Musician Advisory Committee commenting on the submitted from the nominating panel. This addition to the procedure is intended to inform and guide the results of the final nominee list, ensuring that new and and notable names in Canadian blues are included in the ballot.
• Songwriter Of The Year Category: Changes to this category have been made to ensure that the nominated artist(s) has contributed 50% or more towards the song writing on the recent album to be eligible in this category.
• Social Media Advertising Banned: While getting nominated for a Maple Blues Award is a wonderful achievement and excitement, not all of the nominees are regular users of social media or some may not have the budgets to execute a successful advertising campaign to solicit votes. In the pursuit of fairness for all of the nominees and transparency, social media advertising by the MBA nominees will now be banned during the public voting period for the 23rd annual Maple Blues Awards.

MAPLE BLUES AWARDS APPLICATION PROCESS

There is no application process for the Maple Blues Awards. Nominations are drawn from the expertise of the MBA Nominating Panel. Members of the nominating panel are required to be familiar with Canadian blues artist activity and CD releases. Artists are encouraged to service new releases to all blues radio DJs, journalists and industry professionals across Canada to increase their national profile.

Recording/Producer Of The Year. Nominated recordings in this category must be released during the eligibility period: September 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.

New Artist Or Group Of The Year. Group or individual, new to the national blues scene, who has made considerable advances artistically and/or commercially over the previous year. The nominee should be performing under its/his/her name on a regular basis and must not have been nominated in any Maple Blues Awards category previously. The award recognizes the group or individual.

LOOKING BACK: 22nd ANNUAL MAPLE BLUES AWARDS

The 22nd Annual Maple Blues Awards took place on Monday, February 4, 2019, at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

Some of the best in Canadian Blues were honoured with Maple Blues Awards at the near sold-out 22nd annual Maple Blues Awards on Monday, February 4 at Koerner Hall. Hosted by popular theatre/television actor and blues artist Raoul Bhaneja (of Raoul and The Big Time) along with the The Maple Blues Band, the audience was treated to sizzling performances by Edmonton expat Jenie Thai, Newfoundland’s Earle & Coffin, Ottawa’s Sue Foley (now based in Austin), and Toronto-based guitarist and singer Emily Burgess. Salt Spring Island’s Harry Manx teamed up with MonkeyJunk’s Steve Marriner to preview their new release and Raoul closed the show with the Big Time joined by surprise guest and big winner Colin James for the finale.

Performances from the night and the show are available at TBS Youtube channel.

Click here to see photos from the magical evening:

*Photo credits: Greg King

Photo Gallery

MAPLES BLUES AWARDS NOMINATING PANEL

The Nominating Panel consists of industry professionals from across Canada who volunteer their time to participate.

*The panel is led by a steering committee consisting of John Valenteyn, Brant Zwicker, Yanick Theriault and Terry Parsons.