Big
Mark & The Blues Express
TBS Talent Search Winners Big Mark and The Blues Express will make their next Toronto appearance as part of the Labatt Blues & BBQ Festival at Harbourfront Centre July 7. Their set will be to be taped for later airplay on CBC's Saturday Night Blues. Watch for their upcoming release Steak and Potatoes.
Here comes Big Mark Legault, barreling down the road from Montreal and about to lay some heavy blues on the good folk in Ontario. "We're looking forward to it," says Mark, still flush with the excitement of being chosen winner of the Toronto Blues Society's annual Talent Search. After his win, the band's been back to Toronto to take part in the NXNE music festival, but what's really making them look forward to burning rubber on the 401 is their appearance as part of the Labatt Blues & BBQ Festival at Harbourfront Centre July 7.
That event, to be taped for later airplay on CBC's Saturday Night Blues, is the band's next step upward as Big Mark and The Blues Express try to move their career up several notches this summer. Big Mark and The Blues Express started out in 1998, and they've made heavy inroads not only on the Montreal scene, but on Quebec's thriving blues festival circuit.
With their first record, titled Steak and Potatoes, finished and independently released at home, they'll have copies in abundance to spread around Toronto when they hit Harbourfront. The six piece band, which Legault fronts on guitar and vocals, has two horn players and a kick-ass sound that owes as much to the jump blues tradition as it does to the Chicago blues idiom.
Mike Zablatsky is on rhythm guitar, Rob "Big Daddy" Marcheterre is the drummer, while Costa Zafiropoulos is the bass man. Frank Thiffault is on sax, and Dave Marshand holds down the trumpet chair.
Harp player Pat Loiselle - who leads his own band in Montreal - took a considerable role on the new recording, and often joins The Blues Express for specific gigs. Working the audience is what the band's especially good at - as those who saw them play the Talent Search gig at the Silver Dollar Room soon discovered. They had strong competition, too - the runners up were one of Toronto's favourite harmonica cats, Jerome Godboo, along with 16-year-old Saskatoon guitar slinger Jordan Cook. The band is grateful to the TBS for the opportunity to play - and will certainly use their portion of the generous prize money contributed to the TBS by Galaxie, the CBC's digital music network, to keep the momentum moving forward.
"We really want to hit the Ontario circuit," says Legault. "With luck, the doors we've been able to push open a little bit will tumble down after the Harbourfront Centre concert. We know how this event has helped other bands in the past, and we want to bring the music to wider markets. "This is our start."
And, for Ontario blues fans, yet another wake-up call to remind them of the vigourous blues scene based - only 300 miles away - in Montreal.
- Richard Flohil