Robert Connely Farr is a Vancouver resident, who grew up in Bolton MS. In 2017, he travelled to nearby Bentonia to learn from Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, who runs and performs at the Blue Front Café there. It’s celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and is the longest running juke joint in Mississippi.
Robert Davis moved here from Kingston in 1981, playing harmonica and learning guitar while teaching in community college and working with the homeless. He was also learning Spanish and would regularly visit Cuba to play with band called Bluespirit. He formed a band here called Up the Line, which was a finalist in the 2007 Talent Search. Fraser Melvin is a very talented guitarist and arranger about town, currently playing with Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes and you heard some of his amazing charts at the Women’s Blues revue last fall.
This is the new project for Raoul Bhaneja, entertainer, vocalist, actor, harmonica player & bandleader. He’s joined by Jesse Whiteley of the famous Whiteley clan and a keyboard wiz formerly with bands like JW-Jones and the 24th Street Wailers. The duo’s name derives from ‘jazz standard’ and they chose songs from well-known jazz singers such as Nat King Cole, Chet Baker and Jimmy Scott. The album title comes from a Joe Williams song, which gets a lovely vocal from Raoul.
You’ve seen Eric Schenkman’s name in the listings playing guitar in Jerome Godboo’s bands for some years now along with many others. He’s also a member of Godboogie, a more formal Godboo lineup whose album Play Music and Dance was released last year by Vizztone. Schenkman was a founding member and guitarist for the New York City alt-rock group the Spindoctors
Back in May 2016 Melissa McClelland & Luke Doucet, the Hamilton duo who call themselves Whitehorse, released Vol. 1. It became one of the nominees for the Blues JUNO last year. They had already won a JUNO for Leave No Bridge Unburned. Vol. 2 may well do the same or even better next year. On both EPs, they combine their alt-rock (and laptop) sensibility with a deep understanding of the importance of the blues along with their very contemporary music, in each case adding new insights to the selected blues classics.
Various Artists Muscle Shoals Small Town Big Sound RCA
Keesha Pratt Band Believe Independent
Eric Lindell Revolution in Your Heart Alligator
Boz Scaggs Out of the Blues Concord
Keith Stone With Red Gravy Keith Stone With Red Gravy Independent
Billy Hector Some Day Baby Ghetto Surf Music
Anthony Geraci Why Did You Have To Go Shining Stone
Damon Fowler The Whiskey Bayou Session Whiskey Bayou Records
Bob Lanza Kid Dogs And Krazy Women Connor Ray Music
Billy Gibbons The Big Bad Blues Concord
Big Harp George Uptown Cool Blues Mountain Records
Tom Hambridge The NOLA Sessions SuperStar
Trudy Lynn Blues Came Knockin’ Connor Bay Music
Russ Green City Soul Cleopatra Records
Kat Riggins In The Boys’ Club Bluzpik
David Vest * David Vest Cordova Bay
Jack de Keyzer * Checkmate Blue Star Records
Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar * Run To Me Gypsy Soul Records
Ndidi O * These Days Independent
Spencer Mackenzie * Cold November Gypsy Soul
Elise LeGrow * Playing Chess S-Curve Records
Lindsay Beaver * Tough As Love Alligator
Suzie Vinnick * Shake The Love Around Independent
Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here Alligator
Myles Goodwyn * And Friends of the Blues Northern Goody Two Tunes/Linus
Gina Sicilia Heard the Lie Blue Elan Records
Kara Grainger Living With Your Ghost Station House
Bob Corritore & Friends Don’t Let The Devil Ride SWMAF / VizzTone
Nicki Bluhm To Rise You Gotta Fall Compass
Kat Danser * Goin’ Gone Black Hen
Mike Farris Silver & Stone Compass
Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band Poor Until Payday Thirty Tigers
Rachelle Coba Blink American Showplace
Buddy Guy The Blues is Alive and Well Silvertone/RCA/Sony
Al Basile Me & The Originator Sweetspot
Jon Cleary Dyna-Mite FHQ/Thirty Tigers
Dan McKinnon The Cleaner Independent
Michael Kaeshammer * Something New Linus Entertainment Inc.
John Fogerty The Holy Grail BMG
Sons of Rhythm * Sons of Rhythm Independent
*=Canadian
Rory Block makes a rare Toronto appearance at Hugh’s Room Live on Tuesday, February 12, 2019. Born in Princeton, NJ, Aurora Rory Block grew up in Manhattan in a family with Bohemian leanings. Her father owned a Greenwich Village sandal shop, where musicians like Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur and John Sebastian all made occasional appearances. She learned her first lessons in blues and gospel music from the Reverend Gary Davis. She swapped stories and guitar licks with seminal bluesman Son House, Robert Johnsons mentor (He kept asking, Where did she learn to play like this?). She visited Skip James in the hospital after his cancer surgery. She traveled to Washington, DC, to visit with Mississippi John Hurt and absorb first-hand his technique and his creativity. Heralded as a living landmark (Berkeley Express), a national treasure (Guitar Extra), and one of the greatest living acoustic blues artists (Blues Revue), Rory Block has committed her life and her career to preserving the Delta blues tradition and bringing it to life for 21st century audiences around the world.
Raoul Bhaneja will host the Maple Blues Awards gala February 4 at Koerner Hall
Vernon BC-based Les Copeland is a veteran country bluesman, tracing his path from Fred McDowell and was a regular playing partner for David Honeyboy Edwards on his trips to the West Coast. Honeyboy guested on Copeland’s earlier discs for Earwig, in person on the first and in spirit on the second.
This is a new quartet of local players none of whom have been mentioned in this column before. Their name comes from the phrase ‘Everything is just Jim Dandy’ and it is also a stage persona, a character played by Jim Stefanuk, who handles the vocals and lead guitar.
©2019 Toronto Blues Society. Design by Janine Stoll Media.
TBS logo and WBR artwork by Barbara Klunder
The Toronto Blues Society acknowledges the annual support of the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage, and project support from FACTOR< and the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage (Canada Music Fund) and of Canada’s Private Broadcasters, The Canada Council for the Arts, the SOCAN Foundation, SOCAN, the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport.
