MonkeyJunk based in Ottawa were the only Canadian artists nominated at the prestigious Blues Music Awards presented by The Blues Foundation in Memphis, TN. They were even invited to perform at the Awards gala. This tremendous recognition crowned a great year filled with nominations and awards in Canada as well a prize for Best New Artist in Memphis. Their first CD Tiger In Your Tank is getting a lot of mileage!

The Blues Foundation is Memphis-based, but world-renown as the organization dedicated to preserving our blues music history, celebrating recording and performance excellence, supporting blues education and ensuring the future of this uniquely American art form. Founded in 1980, the Foundation has 3500 individual members and 185 affiliated local blues societies representing another50,000 fans and professionals around the world. Its signature honors and events - the Blues Music Awards, Blues Hall of Fame, International Blues Challenge and Keeping the Blues Alive Awards -make it the international center of blues music.

It was a red letter evening for Canada’s Stony Plain Records label at the annual Blues Award ceremonies in Memphis last night (Thursday May 6).

The “Album of the Year” award went to Joe Louis Walker for Between a Rock and the Blues, his second album of the label. And guitarist, bandleader, songwriter and producer Duke Robillard earned “Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year” honours.

Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival organizers unveiled today a complete headliner schedule for the 20th anniversary edition of an event that has grown to become Atlantic Canada's premier annual music event. Brimming with top international and national acts, the program for the September 14th-19th event is designed to celebrate in a way that will get the attention of music fans across the region.

The IBC has evolved into the nation's biggest and most respected showcase for Blues musicians ready to take their act to the national stage. The IBC is a judged "Battle of the Bands" in which competitors take the stage and play a short set for a panel of judges. The acts are judged based on an established set of criteria. The IBC represents an international search by The Blues Foundation and it's Affiliated Organizations (mostly blues societies) for the Blues Band and Solo/Duo Blues Act ready to perform on a national stage, but just need that extra break. Each Affiliate of The Blues Foundation has the right to send a band or solo/duo act to represent the organization at the IBC Semi-Finals on Beale Street in Memphis, TN.

5^th Annual Blues Event will be 100 Solo Shows  

Darker Ways. Roads less travelled. Blue highways. Places found in the crease of the map. Encounters with strangers on strange days. A money candle in a broken window. It's Doc MacLean, watching the tail light reflections tracking in the rear view mirror. Doc, drinking bourbon by the roadside. Doc with his battered 1929 National steel guitar.

Doc MacLean. He's a blues vagabond writing from the dark side of the blues highway. He's spent the last forty years exploring the road atlas from A to Z- surfacing sometimes on big stages in fancy halls, sometimes streetside trolling for change and a meal. No managers, agents, record companies. No fancy new guitars. He's a traveller, a collector and teller of songs and stories- a songster in the blues tradition. Blues Revue magazine called him "the Prince of Darkness."

Wow! What a great show on the weekend. Fathead put on quite a performance and a full house of blues fans, many seeing the band for the first time, saw and heard what all the fuss was about with this professional band of players. The dance floor was packed all night and after two energetic 70 minute sets the boys came back for an encore that finished up with five part harmony a cappella.

Jack de Keyzer offers four exclusive Master Classes in blues guitar. Various styles such as Delta blues, Chicago blues, Texas blues, West coast, Urban blues   and Soul/Jazz will be demonstrated along with detailed descriptions of tunings, turn arounds, blues forms, jazz modes, licks, runs, chords and scales.

Classes will be interactive and fun and will feature several  songs per lesson for the students to take home and work on. The course/classes run May 5, 12, 19, 26  and are geared for beginner to intermediate players. Individual classes or all four packages available.

WHERE: Creative Math & Music Studios, 1064 Salk Rd, Units 5-7, Pickering, ON 905-686-6284

The story is well-known by now - life, as you know it, is forever changed when you lose the only real job you've ever had. There's that amazingly vacant feeling as, when the rug is pulled, you fall - not entirely knowing how or where you're going to land. This happened to Mako Funasaka, who worked at the Hudson Bay Company from 1981 until that special day in the fall of 2000. New Millennium, my ass. Yet Mako did something the rest of us rarely have the courage to do - he made a plan, invested into it and set about to DO it. And this resulted in the launch of his first series in 2002 - Talkin' Blues - which ran on Bravo Canada for five years and three years on BETJazz in the U.S. He followed this with another series - Rhythm, Roots and Soul - which continues to run on Bravo Canada.

Let's check in on this highly accomplished dynamo and see what he's been up to....?

Jake Chisolm and the Blue Midnights with Special Guests
April 10, 2010 at the Silver Dollar Room in Toronto.

The first time I saw Jake Chisholm was in 1998 when his band, the Blue Midnights won the Toronto Blues Society New Talent Search and a Show Case spot at the Harbourfront Blues Festival. It was a "Big Band" then, sporting a number of horns and a kick ass rhythm section in an almost "swing" type blues sound. A fabulous evening. I remember being a little disappointed a few weeks later when I went to see them again, expecting to get the full sound horn section, only to see the Blue Midnights as a quartet. Just economics, I guess.

But I was anything but disappointed on Saturday when Jake brought his Blue Midnights to the Silver Dollar. Still gone are the horns but with a rhythm section of Terry Wilkins on Bass and Sly Juhas on drums and a repertoire of blues standards and Jake's blues originals, how could you go wrong.

I wake up a little later than usual on Saturday morning (March 27). Although not hung over, I am a little foggy and my day starts slowly. I get the fixings ready for an onion pot roast, which will cook all day in my slow cooker, ready to be enjoyed on my return from the matinee at The Duck.

The guest this week is Brian Blain and he is another dear friend. Our connection comes not only from the blues but also from the fact that we are both displaced Quebecers. Brian comes from the Eastern Townships, a wonderfully luscious area south of Montreal and close to the US border into Vermont. One of my best friends from high school lives there and I used to visit her almost on a weekly basis once I moved to Montreal.

It's Friday, March 26 and tonight I am going to a birthday party. I met B at the Niagara Falls Blues Festival several years ago. I had a booth at the festival and he had put his name in our draw. He ended up winning half a dozen Canadian blues CDs. He's an avid blues fan and we often bumped into each other at local events. We eventually become good friends and continue to attend local and out-of-town events.

He happens to be another regular at The Duck so he decided to have his party there. He asked that we not bring gifts but that we instead bring non-perishable foods to donate to the local food bank.

NEW BLUES DINNER & SHOW FUNDRAISERS START MAY 20th AT STANLEY¹S OLDE MAPLE LANE FARM, EDWARDS ON
 
Choose The Blues Productions of Kenmore, Ontario is pleased to announce that a new Series of Blues Dinner & Show Fundraisers ­ "BLUES DOWN ON THE FARM" ­ is starting May 20th at STANLEY¹S OLDE MAPLE LANE FARM, 2452 Yorks Corners Rd, Edwards, Ontario www.stanleysfarm.com only a 25 minute drive from Parliament Hill south east of the city.
 
Patterned after the same formula as the successful Blues On The Rideau Series at The Cove Inn, Westport that has been running for the past five years BLUES DOWN ON THE FARM will include a full dinner, show and dancing featuring some of Canada¹s best blues artists (and possibly some US acts in the future) in the scenic setting of a beautiful country farm. The Shows take place once a month on THURSDAY NIGHTS from 6:30 to 10:30 pm with proceeds going to help support different charities.