Odds and sods from the Toronto blues community and beyond.
And the Winner is… This year’s Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album was Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder – Get on Board and Best Contemporary Blues Album was Edgar Winter for Brother Johnny.
MonkeyJunk 15th Anniversary Video Series! MonkeyJunk is celebrating 15 years as a band in 2023. To commemorate this milestone, they are releasing 15 live videos throughout the year. Future videos will include guest artists – people the band has collaborated with and/or has been inspired by over their 15 years as a band!
Goin’ to Memphis: On Sunday January 15 at 8pm at the Function Bar, 2291 Yonge Street, the TBS presents the IBC “Road To Memphis” Fundraiser Concert with Heather Luckhart, Garnetta & Dagroovmasters and special guest Kenny ‘Blues Boss” Wayne. Tickets are $15 ($10 – TBS Members).
REVIVAL 69: The Concert That Rocked the World, showcases never-seen footage and behind-the-scenes stories about a life-altering 1969 one-day music festival at Varsity Stadium where John Lennon performed for the first time without the Beatles, doing an impromptu concert with the Plastic Ono Band, featuring Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Alan White and Klaus Voormann.
Amy Louie Grossmans Music Scholarship: Congratulations to The Five And Tens (Ray Vidal, Anthony Vidal, Nick Vidal and Sean Jackson), recipients of this year’s Amy Louie Grossmans Music Scholarship in the amount of $2000. The runner-up was Wayling James (Tim Wayling, Darrell James, Chris Bender, Rob Pelletier and Larry Gould) who received $1000.
Congratulations to Josephine Matyas & Craig Jones: Their book Chasing the Blues: A Traveler’s Guide to America’s Music won Bronze in the 2022 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition from the Society of American Travel Writers!
Festival season Shuffles to an end: The Southside Shuffle takes over Port Credit September 8-11 with some fine blues from the Legendary Downchild Blues Band, Wide Mouth Mason, Steve Marriner, Ghost Town Blues Band, Lance Anderson Pianorama, Zoom with Shawn Kellerman, Sean Pinchin, Erin McCallum, Jim Dan Dee, Blue Moon Marquee, Rick Taylor, Chuckie Zehr and many more great blues acts. German buzz-act Wellbad will make their Shuffle debut.
Festival Fever: If you didn’t get to a summer blues festival yet, the night is young. Coming up August 4, the world-class Kitchener finds its legs and even though it might not have the long list of American superstars that we have seen pre-pandemic, they’re bringing in a slew of top-notch blues greats from the States and beyond
Festivals in Full Swing: The Toronto Jazz Festival is happening as we go to print with a smattering of blues content
Congratulations! Brooke Blackburn wins solo/duo category at the IBC Challenge at Bobby O’Brien’s in Kitchener. Blackburn, a Torontonian, will be representing the Grand River Blues Society at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. He used to call Guelph home.
©2023 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.
