23rd Annual Maple Blues Awards

Nominees and Winners Event Details Nominating Panel Photos

Nominees and Winners

Congratulations to everyone who won at this year’s Maple Blues Awards! Winner names are highlighted as * WINNER in the nominee list below.

*Click on the names to start listening!

Entertainer of the Year
	Dawn Tyler Watson
	Downchild Blues Band – WINNER!
	Miss Emily
	Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar
	Sue Foley
Electric Act of the Year
	Colin James – WINNER!
	Jack de Keyzer
	Paul DesLauriers Band
	Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar
	Sue Foley
Acoustic Act of the Year
	Big Dave McLean
	Harry Manx
	Manx Marriner Mainline
	Matt Andersen – WINNER!
	Michael Jerome Browne
Male Vocalist of the Year
	Harpdog Brown
	Harrison Kennedy
	Matt Andersen – WINNER!
	Steve Marriner
	Steve Strongman
Female Vocalist of the Year
	Angel Forrest
	Dawn Tyler Watson
	Miss Emily – WINNER!
	Samantha Martin
	Shakura S’Aida
New Artist of the Year
	Bywater Call
	Durham County Poets
	Matchedash Parish
	Miss Emily – WINNER!
	Robert Connely Farr
Recording/Producer of the Year
	Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson – Amour (Stony Plain); Producer: Colin Linden
	Dawn Tyler Watson – Mad Love (Self); Producers: Francois Thiffault & Dawn Tyler Watson – WINNER!
	Harpdog Brown – For Love & Money (Dog House); Producer: Steve Dawson
	Matchedash Parish – Saturday Night (Make It Real); Producer: Lance Anderson
	Matt Andersen – Halfway Home By Morning (True North); Producer: Steve Dawson
B.B. King International Artist of the Year
	Buddy Guy – WINNER!
	Chirstone “Kingfish” Ingram
	Ghost Town Blues Band
	Larkin Poe
	Mavis Staples
Songwriter of the Year
	Big Dave McLean
	Colin Linden
	Dawn Tyler Watson – WINNER!
	Robert Connely Farr
	Sue Foley
Blues with a Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award)
	Alec Fraser
	Brent Parkin
	Danny Brooks
	Joe Murphy
	Ken Whiteley
	Michael Fonfara
	Michael Jerome Browne – WINNER!
	Tom Lavin
Guitarist of the Year
	Anthony Gomes
	Garrett Mason
	Jack de Keyzer
	Paul DesLauriers – WINNER!
	Sue Foley
Harmonica Player of the Year
	Al Lerman
	Harpdog Brown – WINNER! (TIE!)
	Jim Zeller
	Roly Platt
	Steve Marriner – WINNER! (TIE!)
Piano/Keyboard of the Year
	David Vest
	Duane Blackburn
	Jenie Thai
	Jesse O’ Brien
	Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne – WINNER!
Horn Player of the Year
	Chris Whiteley – WINNER! (TIE!)
	Kaven Jalbert (Ben Racine Band)
	Loretta Hale (Andre Bisson Band)
	Mat “Moose” Mousseau (Ben Racine Band) – WINNER! (TIE!)
	Richard Thornton (Jack de Keyzer)
Drummer of the Year
	Chris Nordquist (Steve Kozak, Cannery Row)
	Gary Craig (Colin Linden, Steve Dawson)
	Lindsay Beaver
	Sam Harrisson (Paul DesLauriers Band)
	Tom Bona (Sue Foley) – WINNER!
Bassist of the Year
	Alec Fraser
	Alec McElcheran (Paul DesLauriers Band) – WINNER!
	Gary Kendall
	Keith Picot
	Leigh-Anne Stanton (Wicked Grin)

BLUES BOOSTER OF THE YEAR!

We are thrilled to announce Brian Blain as the Blues Booster of the Year award recipient, a very special Maple Blues Award honouring outstanding contribution to the Canadian blues music industry.

Event Details

On Monday, February 4th 2020, the gala evening for the 23rd Maple Blues Awards at Koerner Hall celebrated artists from coast-to-coast and featured rousing performances from nominees. Three artists took home two awards – Kingston’s Miss Emily won awards for Female Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year, New Brunswick’s Matt Andersen took home trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year and Acoustic Act of the Year while Montreal’s Dawn Tyler Watson was awarded Recording/Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.

For only the second time in Maple Blues Awards history, there were tied winners in two categories – Harpdog Brown and Steve Marriner both won Harmonica Player of the Year and Chris Whiteley and Mat “Moose” Mousseau each won the award for Horn Player of the Year. The Blues with a Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) was awarded to Montreal-based Michael Jerome Browne, whose long and illustrious career has seen him tour around the world, recording seven albums and guesting on countless others, and recently was nominated for Blues Album of the Year at the upcoming JUNO Awards. Also honoured for a long career dedicated to the preservation and promotion of blues music was Toronto Blues Society’s own Brian Blain, who received the Blues Booster of the Year Award.

A new addition to the Maple Blues Awards program is the inaugural Sapphire Video Award. Sapphire has one single category and both live performance and staged production/interpretive videos were accepted. The winner of the Sapphire Video Award was Miss Emily for her video for “Hold Back The River” with the runners up announced as Terra Hazelton for her video for “Anybody’s Baby” and Lucas Haneman Express for their video for the song “Ms. McGrim”. The winning artist received a cash prize of $1,500 while the two runners up each received $250.

A collaboration between The Toronto Blues Society and Paul Reddick, the sixth annual COBALT Prize for Contemporary Blues Composition Award is to promote blues music through exploration of its form. The winning composition was judged on its ability to creatively utilize blues traditions within the broad contemporary musical landscape. The winner of the Cobalt Prize for Contemporary Blues Composition was Rich Junco for his song “Cope”, while the first runner up was Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes for their song “Cruel Thing” and a tied win for the second runner up was Joe Nolan for “Paranoia Day 36 Blues” and Loryn Taggart for “In My Company”. A cash prize of $1000 was presented to the winner and the runners up each received $250.

The 23rd annual Maple Blues Awards 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.

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

Click here to see photos from the magical evening:

Photo Gallery

MAPLES BLUES AWARDS NOMINATING PANEL

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

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