More Blues on Bluz.fm: The irrepressible Danny Marks has a longer shift on Saturday nights with bluz.fm now playing from 7pm to midnight.  Danny calls the first hour “Beyond the Fringe” where he will be spinning tracks that might not otherwise get played on the show.  No doubt his recent stretch as a daytime host at Jazz-fm has exposed him to a lot of new sounds which he will be sharing with his loyal radio audience.  Speaking of loyalty, several jazz-fm donors will be joining Danny for “Blues and Brews,” a bluesy tour of some of Toronto’s coolest craft breweries on Thursday, June 20 where they will experience what goes into making delicious craft beer while Marks and his travelling blues band keep them entertained playing a mini-concert at each stop. 

40th Annual Blues Music Awards: This year’s top award winner (Entertainer of the Year, Band of the Year, Instrumentalist-Vocals) was Michael Ledbetter, who tragically passed away in January. Additionally, his co-bandleader, Monster Mike Welch, topped the Instrumentalist-Guitar category. At the ceremony, Welch noted of his late musical partner: “I am the guitarist I am in 2019 because I had to keep up with Mike Ledbetter.” 

Ex-Toronto resident Kenny Neal won Contemporary Blues Male Artist and Nick Moss is Traditional Blues Male Artist. Shemekia Copeland and Danielle Nicole were both double winners and Ruthie Foster (again) received the Koko Taylor Award for Traditional Blues Female Artist. Rory Block was picked as the top Acoustic Artist and the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year went to Marcia Ball. Buddy Guy, Joe Louis Walker and Charlie Musselwhite were honoured as well as many others. For the complete list of winners, go to www.blues.org

More bad news for the arts: The Government of Ontario has just announced that, the Ontario Arts Council, which awards grants, will receive $10 million less funding this year – $5 million being cut off of Indigenous Culture Fund established last year. Another $8M cut to music grant program Ontario Creates (formerly OMDC) was announced last month by the government as well – down from $15M, cutting more than half. Culture programs are budgeted at $235 million this year, down from nearly $295 million last year, including cutting “arts sector support” from $18.5 million to $6.5 million