News

The Toronto Blues Society’s virtual workshop series is back with a Harmonica Workshop this month! The workshop is hosted by guitarist & harmonica player Sugar Brown aka Ken Kawashima. Harmonica masters joining Sugar Brown at the workshop are Bharath Rajakumar, Dave Mowat, and Ken Yoshioka!

The Toronto Blues Society is proud to launch a new series which will include special live interviews with some Blues pioneers. The Blackburn father & son is interviewed by music journalist Nicholas (Nick) Jennings on August 27th.

TBS Presents Cootes Paradise Video Premier streamed on June 18th at 5pm on The Toronto Blues Society Facebook Page. Shot at Hugh’s Room Live and drawn from their soon to be released album “Downstream”, the live version of “The First Time”, the video premier was followed by a virtual interview of the band by DJ Ken Wallis.

TBS celebrates its 35th Anniversary as part of the National Arts Centre / Centre national des Arts #CanadaPerforms, Road to Canada Day on Monday, June 15, 7pm. Concert presented in association with Music by the Bay Live.

TBS is proud to be partnering with the City of Toronto for their new “City Hall Live” live stream series on Facebook. First up is a former year’s Maple Blues Awards host, Raoul Bhaneja

With the publication last summer of “Up Jumped The Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson” by Gayle Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth, we discovered there was previously unknown Memphis chapter in his history. Incidentally this book has won the Penderyn Prize for the best music book of any kind. We now have as full a description of the solid family life there as we’re ever likely to have.

Cootes Paradise is, as you’ll recall, both the former name of the town of Dundas and a beautiful park. Their self-titled first album was nominated for a Maple Blues Award and we are now treated to the follow up. Downstream features all the veterans that made that first one led by the co-vocalists Sue Leonard and Wayne Krawchuk. They call their sounds roots and blues but for this album at least they are into a bluesy soulful blend.

One of the club scene highlights for the past couple of years has been Paul Reddick’s regular gig at The Sauce on Danforth. In lieu of those evenings he has now taken to YouTube to give us a taste every week and we also get a full live album, only one recorded in Italy while on tour there last year.