News

Manitoba Hal (Brolund) is a ukulele player based in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, although he was born and raised in Winnipeg. He has raised his profile recently with a couple of fine albums but if you check his web site you’ll find that he has some fourteen in his discography, so prolific is he as a songwriter.

In much the same vein as last year’s Big City Back Country Blues with Brandon Isaak and Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne, Tim Williams has partnered with Big Dave McLean and inventive percussionist Kevin Belzner to bring you another example of the benefits of collaboration, within a mix of original and traditional blues.

Having captured the sassy sounds of those early female R&B singers from the forties and fifties as shown on their first album, Cursed, Bad Luck Woman & Her Misfortunes have now incorporated that sound into some strikingly good original material plus a few more rarely heard covers.

This month’s recommended listening by John Valenteyn, host of John Valenteyn’s Blues on ciut.fm, 89.5 and CD reviewer for Maple Blues. 

Winterfolk & Blues: More than 100 artists will be performing on 5 stages at Winterfolk, now relocated from the Danforth to the Spadina/Bloor area including the Tranzac. It takes place February 21-24. Buy early and the wristband price is a mere $15 for the entire weekend. Blues highlights include: Ken Whiteley, Heather Luckhart, Jack de Keyzer (pictured), Chris Whiteley & Diana Braithwaite, Jerome Tucker, Brian Blain, Donne Roberts, and more. Tickets for the Winterfolk Preview show on January 18th in Scarborough include a wristband for the February event. More info at www.winterfolk.com.

For the last month of 2019, Sugar Brown aka Ken Kawashima is taking over the “Blues Revival” series on December 18th! Come and enjoy a blues evening in an intimate space surrounded by vinyl, Armenian coffee, booze, and some good yums that Antikka – Cafe & Records has to offer!

This year we team up with Alleycatz for the TBS Christmas Party, featuring local heavy-weights, Gary Kendall & Michael Fitzpatrick (aka The Big Groove) at their weekly residency with special guests Rhaoul Bhaneja & Darren Gallen! A night full of classic blues awaits the guests, including raffle tickets and so much more!

It was beginning to look like blues horn players were an endangered species but the number of albums with guest horn sections is increasing rapidly and we are now once again seeing actual albums by working horn bands coming to the fore.

Emily Burgess rode her first album, Are We In Love?, to the New Artist MBA last year and was busily recording this one at the time of the awards.

Meghan Parnell and Dave Barnes’ band, Bywater Call, first came to our attention with the 2018 Talent Search. Led by Parnell’s magnificent voice and Barnes’ fluid slide guitar, they won rather handily.