Changes at Hugh’s:

Derek Andrews will move on from his role as Music Programmer at the much loved listening room Hugh’s Room Live in the Dundas West neighborhood. Board chair Brian Iler announced the shift as Andrews has wrapped up an eighteen month stint lifting the phoenix venue out of distress.

The Board of Hugh’s Room Live have announced the following appointments to their programming team; Treasa Levasseur (blues + roots), Cheryl Prashker (folk + roots), Jory Nash (folk) and Michael Occhipinti (jazz + chamber).
Hugh’s Room Live was recently chosen the Best Blues and Jazz Club in the NOW magazine readers poll. Apart from being the founding President of the Toronto Blues Society, Derek Andrews will continue producing Canada’s only world music conference “Mundial Montreal,” consulting for his Global Cafe clients and sitting on the Toronto Music Advisory Council.

Congratulations…

…to Dan McKinnon on his recent marriage and having his album The Cleaner selected to represent the Toronto Blues Society in the Blues Foundation’s Best Self-Produced CD competition. The finalists will be announced prior to The International Blues Challenge with the winner revealed during the IBC Finals on Saturday, January 26, 2019.
Blues from Chile: Taste It is a high-energy blues band from Chile who will be making several appearances in Toronto this month including a special after-party following the regular Wednesday MidTown Blues jam at Alleycatz on Wednesday, November28. They also have a few plays at Roc ‘n Docs in Mississauga as well as The Moonshine Café in Oakville on November 29.

Harp Players Take Note:

The long anticipated Paul Butterfield documentary, “Horn from the Heart – The Paul Butterfield Story” is coming to Toronto Hot Docs. on December 21. www.facebook.com/PaulButterfieldDocumentary.

Gibson saved:

The troubled Gibson guitar company (aka Gibson Brands) announced a crop of new executives who hope to guide the business through a pivotal transition in its 124-year history, as the company emerges from bankruptcy protection. The company’s newly named president and CEO is James “JC” Curleigh, who is exiting his role as president of Levi Strauss & Co. to take the position.

Earlier this month, a U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware approved the company’s reorganization plan, which allows it to exit bankruptcy and keep itself in business. On Nov. 1, in parallel to the new executive team’s first day on the job, will assume majority ownership control of Gibson. The incoming chairman of the company’s board of directors will be Nat Zilkha of the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (the new owners). He is also the former lead guitarist of the New York band Red Rooster, which released three albums in the 2000s and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in 2008.

Under the reorganization plan, the company will continue to manufacture its famous Gibson and Epiphone guitars, as well as maintain its professional audio business that makes studio monitors and loudspeakers under the names KRK and Cerwin Vega. It will be dropping its efforts to push into the home entertainment and headphone categories — areas that the company had once hoped would make up for a decline in instrument sales, but which accounted for much of its debt.

In its May filings for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Gibson estimated that it had up to $500 million in debt.