Congrats to Blues Grammy Nominees: Best Traditional Blues Album: All My Dues Are Paid – Frank Bey; You Make Me Feel – Don Bryant ; That’s What I Heard – Robert Cray Band; Cypress Grove – Jimmy “Duck” Holmes; Rawer Than Raw – Bobby Rush
For Best Contemporary Blues Album the nominees are: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? – Fantastic Negrito; Live At The Paramount – Ruthie Foster Big Band; The Juice – G. Love; Blackbirds – Bettye Lavette; Up And Rolling – North Mississippi Allstars
Marcus King got his first-ever Grammy nomination for his debut solo album, El Dorado in the “Best Americana Album” category. Winners will be announced on Jan. 31, 2021

Closer to home, The Canadian Folk Awards nominations included some familiar names to our blues gang: Julian Taylor was nominated for English Songwriter of the Year and Solo Artist of the Year. Rob Lutes’ side project, Sussex received a nom for Ensemble of the Year. Crystal Shawanda is nominated for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year. And Durham County Poet Kevin Harvey is nominated for Traditional Singer of the Year. The 16th edition of the Canadian Folk Music Awards Celebration will take place online over the weekend of April 9-10, 2021

BluesTube: ‘I PLEAD THE 61’ is a Blues Series by Eve Kinizo Films available on youtube /Vimeo/Facebook links on ‘Healey’s Hideaway’ page. The first episode aired December 4 featuring Civil Wray and the next episode will be aired December 11 featuring Jake Chisholm. The other episodes will air every week in December so people should subscribe in order to get notification.

Would you like to host a blues radio show? The loss of John Valenteyn had repercussions beyond the TBS and now CIUT-FM is looking for some blues-knowledgeable wannabe radio hosts to fill his slot and keep the blues alive on CIUT. They’re looking for 4 committed individuals to to act as rolling hosts, meaning a one show per month commitment. Anyone interested can contact Ken Stowar at [email protected]