24th Maple Blues Awards

24th MAPLE BLUES AWARDS IS GOING ONLINE IN 2021

Toronto Blues Society’s annual national awards show Maple Blues Awards is going virtual on its next edition from 4 different cities! A bundle of awards will be announced next to some exciting performances from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver each Monday of February! We are launching with a stream from Toronto on Monday, Feb 1st. Mark your calendar now for Mon, Feb 8, 15, and 22 as well. Public voting will still take place during the month of November 2020 and the winners will be announced during the online awards show in February. Stay tuned on this website for the public voting!

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, 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 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. The list of the Panel members can be found on our website (bottom of this page) with a link to their organizations.

Recording/Producer Of The Year. Nominated recordings in this category must be released during the eligibility period: September 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020.

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: 23rd ANNUAL MAPLE BLUES AWARDS

On Monday, February 4th 2020, the gala evening for the 23rd Maple Blues Awards at Koerner Hall celebrated artists from coast-to-coast. The awards show 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.

Click here to access the archive and read more details about the night.

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

Photo Gallery

*Photo credits: Greg King

MAPLES BLUES AWARDS NOMINATING PANEL

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

Click here to download the communication sheet for the Panel.

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