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Duke Robillard will be sharing his blues licks & tricks at The Toronto Session of Guitar Workshop Plus on July 23 – 28, 2018 at the York University campus. This seminar is designed for players who love the raw energy, feel, and power of Blues music in all of it’s forms from Swing, Delta and Chicago to Texas and electrifying blues/rock sounds. The course will work on improving each participant’s playing and help with soloing from the ground up. Topics include various blues progressions, chord voicings, various rhythm patterns, turnarounds, phrasing, scale and arpeggio usage, double stops, developing solo ideas, and how to achieve a good blues tone and plenty of jamming as well as group development (entire bands will sometimes attend) and the family experience (father and son, mother and daughter, brothers and sisters, etc.) More info at www.guitarworkshopplus.com

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.

Alana Bridgewater as May Rainey at Soulpepper

To quote the press release, James Harman’s last one on Electro-Fi, Bonetime, hit #1 on the Living Blues magazine’s radio chart and received 5 BMA nominations. I see no reason why this one should not do even better. But then I’m biased, I think Harman is one of the best blues songwriters around and Fineprint has thirteen more treasures.

Port Colborne-based documentary maker Christopher Darton has already produced the excellent The Way We Was: The Story of The Kendall Wall Blues Band and a new video for the Mighty Duck Blues Band’s video for “Hammered and Nailed” featuring John Dickie. His choice of Danny Brooks’ epic journey is a most welcome one. Many are now aware of his horrible descent into addiction and the miraculous recovery he attributes to his newfound faith and his wife Deb.

A blues traditionalist and proud of it is Sugar Brown aka Ken Kawashima, who is also a Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto and who comes to us from Bowling Green OH via Chicago, where he played in several blues bands. For his third album, he again shows us that there is no need to stray outside the tradition to come up with contemporary blues songs.

Myles Goodwyn, the lead singer and principal songwriter for April Wine (20 million albums sold), has apparently been a staunch blues fan all along. He has found the time to write songs and stockpile tracks for a possible album. He has also given a lot of thought to who might be suitable ‘Friends’ to help.

One of the big stories last fall was the forthcoming album from Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar, the critical success of Send The Nightingale serving to heighten the anticipation. The TBS selected the newly enlarged group after a competition at Hugh’s Room with Dan McKinnon and Raoul & The Big Time to be its representative at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Alas, that trip proved to be unsuccessful but a major record label reached a much different conclusion and the album will soon be here for us all to enjoy – the Release Party is at The Horseshoe on April 28th.

Jason Buie: MapleBlues doesn’t usually run a picture more than once, let alone within a couple of months, but we’re re-printing this “selfie” of an ecstatic Jason Buie after he was presented the Maple Blues Award for Best New Artist in January. We are sorry to report that Jason passed away on March 22 at his home in Esquimalt BC. He died just as he was getting the national recognition he deserved in the Blues Scene. He leaves behind three children who will need a lot of help and support in the coming months. A GoFundMe page has been set up at https://www.gofundme.com/jason-buie-fundraiser

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