Shuffling Along: The Southside Shuffle has been challenged like all festivals but will be proceeding with a slightly downsized event on September 9,10 and 11 with an all-Canadian line-up due to restrictions getting acts from US and Europe. Meanwhile, Artistic Director Chuck Jackson has programmed a series of livestream concerts to be aired on consecutive Sundays in July starting with “Ramble on the Rez” with Mark Laforme and Joel Johnson, followed by “Ladies Sing the Blues” with Suzie Vinnick and Miss Emily, “Pianorama – Remembering Michael Fonfara,” with Lance Anderson and Jenie Thai and finishing off with”Mannish Boys” with Jimmy Bowskill & Steve Marriner. The shows will be recorded at the Moonshine Café in late June and will include a short chat with Chuck. This will be a fundraising initiative for the festival, though fans can donate anytime at www.southsideshuffle.com

CIUT FM launches new Blues Show: After the upsetting passing of John Valenteyn last year, CIUT FM is launching a new blues program every Monday from 7-8pm with rotating hosts Andrew Galloway, Brooke Blackburn, Sugar Brown (aka Ken Kawashima) and a most welcome return to the airwaves for the “Blues Doctor”, Julie Hill.
Rob Bowman releases the story of Malaco Records: Maple Blues Booster and long-time friend of the TBS, Rob Bowman has published a comprehensive coffee-table book on the history of Malaco Records. Bill King interviewed Rob for his new podcast on FYImusicnews and shared this info:

Professor Rob Bowman pioneered popular music studies at York University. He lectures, publishes and broadcasts in many areas of popular music, from country, R & B and gospel to reggae, rap and funk and has written liner notes for dozens of recordings and regularly authors, produces and advises on major documentary and CD reissue projects for record companies in Europe and North America.

A six-time Grammy Award nominee, he won a Grammy in 1996 for Best Album Notes for his 47,000-word monograph accompanying the 10-CD boxed set of The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 3: 1972-1975, which he co-produced. His nominations include Best Album Notes for the 4 CD box set The Stax Story, Best Album Notes for The Malaco Records Story: The Last Soul Company and The Complete Stax Singles, Vol. 1 1959-1968, and Best Historical Reissue for The Otis Redding Story. He received his sixth Grammy nomination in December 2018, for Best Historical Album for Jackie Shane: Any Other Way.

Bowman’s book, Soulsville, U.S.A. – The Story of Stax Records (1997), a definitive history of the legendary Memphis-based record label, has garnered numerous honours, including winner of the 1998 ASCAP-Deems Taylor and ARSC Awards for Excellence in Music Research. In 2013 Soulsville U.S.A. was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis.

Last month, Malaco Records published Bowman’s latest music history: The Last Soul Company: The Malaco Records Story that celebrates the legacy of the longest running independent record label in the United States, as well as a leading force for the promotion of gospel, soul, blues and Black music in general.

Running 200 pages and filled with stories, dozens of never-before-seen photographs, and other ephemera from the label’s 50-plus year history that highlights the careers of such seminal artists as Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bobby Blue Bland, Z.Z. Hill, Johnnie Taylor, Little Milton, and James Cleveland.

Professor Bowman is the first in a new series of FYI podcast interviews conducted by Bill King called Talk! Conversations in All Keys: Interviews with the icons of the music industry.