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.
Kevin Breit’s mastery of anything with strings is legendary. A first-call session player when he chooses to be, he also continues to release albums that reflect his eccentric and unclassifiable musical tastes.
This is Sunday Wilde’s eighth album and the first one since the passing of her partner Reno Jack. It also continues her practice of re-working some blues standards all featuring her ‘one-of-a kind’ vocals & barrelhouse piano.
Out of the Blue is a very apt title for this album. Jack de Keyzer was just starting out in Hamilton and Pat Finochio was a fellow student of the blues. They lost touch and only recently reconnected when Finochio asked if he would produce an album on him.
It’s been too long between albums for Chicago-based, Mississippi-born Fruteland Jackson but he has been busy.
Paul DesLauriers is one of our most inventive guitarists. Firmly anchored by his rhythm section, DesLauriers’ multi-tracked guitars (often featuring his slide) form the backbone of a stunning new batch of songs for one of the hottest live bands around.
Calgary’s piano ace and powerhouse vocalist Debra Power released Even Redheads Get the Blues in 2016. It was her first album after many years of performing locally. It was intended to bring her wider exposure and it did just that, leading to the semi-finals at the IBCs and to her nomination to the New Artist category at the Maple Blues Awards.
Nelson, BC’s Holly Hyatt has been performing as half of a duo with her husband and guitarist Jon Burden. They released four albums, the last one, Shufflin’ the Blues, charting strongly.
Sherbrooke native Mike Goudreau used his last album to provide us with a selection of the blues songs he wrote for various TV & movie soundtracks.
Ottawa’s Lucas Haneman Express took their last album, Tearing Up the Rails, to the final five of the Maple Blues Awards in 2017 as Best New Artist. They also made the semi-finals at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis the previous year. They have not stood still.
Winning the 2017 International Blues Challenge, added to her many other awards, has resulted in a heavy international touring schedule, complicated by what her press release terms as ‘her own personal heartbreak’. The combination has inspired a worthy collection of introspective new songs. She didn’t write them all but she did select some good ones to go with her own.
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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.
