Maple Blues Archive

March 2025 – Loose Blues News

TBS @ FAI: The TBS put on a showcase at last month’s Folk Alliance conference in Montreal. The artists featured were Suzie Vinnick, Miss Emily, Michael Jerome Browne, Angelique Francis, Charlie A’Court, Graham Lindsey,The Harpoonist, Berk Jodoin and Maya Killtron.  Suzie reports, “Cat Bird (TBS grant-writer) and her team transformed the space with a beautiful blue and green motif—perfect for our ‘blues’ night, with plenty of blue accents.There was a nice variety of bluesy performers who drew lots of listeners to the room.  I brought along six boxes of Canadian-made maple leaf cookies (wish they were blue!), with extra beer and sodas provided by Cat’s team. It was wonderful to showcase our Canadian blues talent in such a welcoming space. A big thank you to Cat Bird and her team for sharing their space with us!”

March 2025 – Top Blues

This month’s recommended listening by Brant Zwicker, host/executive producer of At the Crossroads syndicated blues radio. Website: atcblues.ca

March 2025 – Jeff Healey

Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of ‘Healey’s Hideaway’ with screening and live music at The Redwood Theatron Thursday, March 6

February 2025 – Joce Reyome

Joce Reyome wins International Blues Challenge solo competition

February 2025 – Mississippi MacDonald

Mississippi MacDonald is Oliver MacDonald —Olly to his friends. He’s an English singer and guitarist from London. His nickname, Mississippi, was given to him by his buddies when he was a student

February 2025 – Top Blues

This month’s recommended listening by Brad Wheeler, music writer for the Globe and Mail Twitter: @bwheelerglobe

February 2025 – Loose Blues News

TBS Celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the excellent documentary, ‘Healey’s Hideaway’ and we celebrate Jeff’s incredible legacy with a screening of the film at the historic Redwood Theatre on Thursday March 6 at 6:30pm.

January 2025 – Jesse Greene

January 2025 – Loose Blues News

Former TBS boarder Julian Taylor shared on his Instagram page that he is this year’s recipient of the Toronto Musician’s Association (Local 149) Community Builder of the Year award which was presented to him by TMA President Les Altt. from TMA. Julian writes, “This means the world to me and I was totally taken by surprise at receiving this prestigious award from Toronto Musicians’ Association – Local 149 AFM. Thank you to all our members for the recognition as Community Builder of the Year. What an honour! “Community = COMMON-UNITY”

January 2025 – Blue Moon Marquee

I enjoyed airing the previous BMM release, and this one will be fun too.  The obvious chemistry between A.W. and Jasmine propels this set, one in which the recording itself stands nearly as tall as the performances captured.  Listening in headphones and noting what I think of as ‘wide mono’ instead of a stereo field, the meld of instrumental sounds with vocals being sung as if to be heard over the instruments (not monitored in headphones and perfected in mix adjustments) is a refreshing escape from contemporary styles that contain each track input in its own compression, reverb and eq, resulting in fine isolation but sacrificing what the instruments themselves have to say to each other about getting to play together.