Maple Blues Online - Loose Blues News

Danny Marks (left) will carry the torch at Jeff Healey's Roadhouse Thursday Nights, starting October 4th

Moving On: Two very familiar TBS personalities are retiring from TBS activities and the Directors, members and staff would like to extend sincere appreciation to “Blues Doctor” Julie Hill and Ian Angus for many years of dedicated work “promoting and preserving the blues” (as our mandate dictates). Julie was an invaluable contributor to the newsletter and an integral part of the planning and direction of TBS events for the last 15 years. She was the director and writer of the Maple Blues Awards gala in recent years (as well as being our “Vanna White” handing out the awards). Ian Angus was responsible for the administration of the awards, chairing the nominating committee and supervising the voting. He and Julie also lent their wise counsel to the Executive Committee in recent years. Ian has also retired from his radio show on CIUT (Let the Good Times Roll) and has handed over the hosting duties to John Valenteyn, a familiar voice for many years on CJRT and a regular guest on Ian’s show. Julie will continue with her radio life as alternating host of Lowdown to Uptown on CKLN. We wish them both well in their future endeavours.

Moving Up: TBS Director Fred Litwin, President of NorthernBlues Music, has been elected to the Executive Committee of The Blues Foundation. He is the first Canadian and non-US resident to be a part of the five-person team that oversees the day-to-day running of the organization, the staff and the finances. Litwin has been a board member of the foundation since late 2003. “I’m delighted to be getting more involved with the foundation,” says Litwin. “It is my goal to represent international blues fans and increase the membership of The Blues Foundation worldwide.” Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, The Blues Foundation is a non-profit organization, with a mission to preserve blues history, celebrate blues excellence, support blues education and ensure the future of this uniquely American art form. The Blues Foundation has 165 affiliated blues societies (including the Toronto Blues Society) with a membership that spans the globe. (www.blues.org).

Ten years in the Blues business is an event worth celebrating, and celebrate it we will on Saturday, November 3rd at the Silver Dollar Room, Toronto. Headlining this very special evening , direct from Chicago in his first ever Toronto appearance, Blues Harp Legend and Electro-Fi Recording Artist: Billy Boy Arnold (right) with the Chicago Blues All-Stars featuring Bob Stroger and Billy Flynn. Plus, Juno Award Winners Fathead and Juno nominee’s Harrison Kennedy and Julian Fauth.

Blues with a Heart: Ken Whiteley’s song “Everybody Has The Blues” has won the Blues Category in the annual Songs From the Heart Songwriter Awards presented by The Ontario Council of Folk Festivals (OCFF). Catherine McInnes and Charlie Sohmerare the 2007 grand-prize winners and take home $1000. each for the Galaxie Rising Stars Award of the CBC. The OCFF Songs From the Heart Awards honour Ontario songwriters in nine categories. The prizes will be presented by the Ontario Council of Folk Festival’s 21st annual conference, October 11-14 in London, Ontario. A complete list of winners is available at www.ocff.ca. Conference registration is also available on-line or via phone at 613-560-5997 or toll free at 1-866-292-6233.

Jeff Healey on the mend: Guitarist, band-leader and musician Jeff Healey, despite his ongoing battle against the cancer gene that stems from retino blastoma - the disease that took his sight in early childhood - is continuing to work on a variety of projects.

Currently in the middle of a course of chemotherapy, he is working on two different recording projects - one a jazz recording for Stony Plain Records, the other a blues CD for Ruf Records in Germany. He is also continuing his Monday evening radio show, My Kinda Jazz, on JazzFM in Toronto.

“I have had to repeat one earlier show, and I’m taping some shows this week, but I’m doing the show live whenever I can, because I much prefer to do it that way,” he said.

A handful of concert dates have been postponed, and Healey was sad to miss a Scandinavian tour, which would have lasted too long to allow his ongoing treatments.

“I have great confidence in the doctors who are working with me,” Healey says. “I’m doing everything I can to keep busy while my doctors and I fight the good fight. Keeping my various projects on the go is as important to my health as are the treatments.”

Textile Blues: The Textile Museum of Canada at 55 Centre Avenue in Toronto is hosting a fascinating exhibit called “The Blues” Curator Patricia Bentley, exploring all aspects of the colour blue, in textiles from West Africa and Japan to the Canadian blue jeans. All with great Blues music playing in the background. She writes “The mystique of the colour blue - beautiful, elusive, reflecting the sky and the sea - pervades human life and culture around the world. As a colour, indigo blue hovers at the edge of the spectrum, just before it waves into violet. As a sound, blue hovers just below the major diatonic scale of C, as “blue notes.” As both colour and sound, blue is cool. The Blues examines the powerful symbolism of a colour and a dye that has been viewed with suspicion and called “the devil’s dye.” Yet blue is also considered emblematic of wealth and power, as in West Africa; protective against poisonous insects and snakes, as in Japan; and even effective medicinally as an astringent and abortifacient, as in many parts of Africa and East Asia. The exhibit runs to March 2008. www.textilemuseum.ca

Poor Folks Blues is on the Air! at CKMS-FM 100.3, the campus/community radio station at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. The host is “BREWSKI”, aka Bruce Hall, founder of the Grand River Blues Society and long-time volunteer there and other blues organizations and events. Check it out: Every Monday from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.

In Kitchener/Waterloo, tune in on 100.3 FM or Rogers Cable/Grand River Region on Channel 946. Outside the area you can listen on line to the “live” WEBCAST at www.ckmsfm.ca

Dofasco Hamilton Music Awards September Seventh Entertainment is pleased to announce the nomination process for the 2007 Dofasco Hamilton Music Awards and the Hamilton Music Industry Awards. Submissions are also being accepted for this year’s festival and compilation CD. The deadline for all submissions and nominations is 4PM Friday October 12, 2007. The Hamilton Music Awards ceremony will be held Sunday, November 18, 2007 at the Hamilton Place Theatre. Submission and nomination forms are available online at www.hamiltonmusicawards.com .

The 2008 JUNO Awards season is upon us and Submission Forms are available as of October 1. Unlike The Maple Blues Awards, The Junos require you to submit your CD to the category in which you would like it to be judged. The CD must have been issued between September 1, 2006 and November 14, 2007. November 14 date is the cut off date, no submissions will be accepted after that date.

We strongly recommend that you submit your CD. It will go to Judges across the country who not only find out about you and your music, they are often able to do something with it. Many of the judges are radio hosts or newspaper columnists who may be able to help you. They can’t do that if you keep your CDs in your closet.

Artists, songwriters, producers, etc, can make their own submissions for awards. You do not require national distribution in order to qualify for the Juno Awards, however, your product must be available for retail or online sale in Canada. Submission forms will be available on the Juno Awards website as of October 1, 2007. More information, including rules, fees, categories and deadlines can be found under “Submissions” at www.junoawards.ca

Lys Blues Awards Quebec held it’s annual blues awards programme Lys Blues Awards on September 17, 2007 in Montreal. The Montreal Blues Society recognized the best and brightest on the blues scene in Quebec. Dawn Tyler Watson was best Female Artist, Bob Walsh was best Male Artist, Pat The White won Composer of the Year and Album of the year for “Reviver”. Young Ricky Paquette won the “Discovery of the Year” as well as Best Show of the Year. For the complete list of winners go to www.lenetblues.com

The new Smokestack Lightnin’! Smokestack Lightnin’ Blues Radio is currently web-casting the digitally recorded version of our live broadcast on WUCF 89.9FM in Orlando. We post the previous Saturday show to our web site every Monday at www.smokestacklightnin.com. You can also enjoy Smokestack Lightnin’ live on WUCF each Saturday night at 8PM Eastern Standard Time (USA). A link to the WUCF URL can be found on our webpage at www.smokestacklightnin.com

Raoul and The Big Time Band (Raoul pictured at right) celebrate their 10th anniversary at the Silver Dollar Room on October 13, 2007 at 9:30 pm. You can also check out Raoul Bhaneja's stage talents in "Hamlet {solo}" , playing in London's Grand Theatre October 30 to November 3 and on television in "Train 48". More info @ www.raoulbhaneja.com Photo by Barbara Cole

Ten years in the Blues business is an event worth celebrating, and celebrate it we will on Saturday, November 3rd at the Silver Dollar Room, Toronto. Headlining this very special evening , direct from Chicago in his first ever Toronto appearance, Blues Harp Legend and Electro-Fi Recording Artist: Billy Boy Arnold with the Chicago Blues All-Stars featuring Bob Stroger and Billy Flynn. Plus, Juno Award Winners Fathead and Juno nominee’s Harrison Kennedy and Julian Fauth.

2007 International Songwriting Competition Deadline Coming: The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is still accepting entries for the 2007 competition. The deadline for entries is October 15. As the only major songwriting competition with a REAL Blues category, ISC Offers better exposure, bigger prizes ($150,000 (US) - including $25,000 (US) cash) and the best judges for any songwriting competition in the world. Judges for 2007 include: Jerry Lee Lewis, John Mayall, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and 7 record label presidents from major and independent records labels (Including Bruce Iglauer (Founder/President Alligator Records). For entry information and a complete list of judges please visit www.songwritingcompetition.com.

2008 Blues Music Awards: The 2008 Blues Music Awards will be held in Tunica Mississippi on Thursday May 8. The Charter Members’ Dinner and Blues Hall of Fame induction will take place at the Tunica Riverpark on Wednesday, May 7. More information will be posted on the website as it becomes available, but our immediate focus is on the International Blues Challenge. In recent years, the nominees, the voting, the tickets and the hotel information has generally been posted all at once around December 15. For more information to to www.blues.org

R.I.P. Kristi Johnston: We’re distressed to report the death of Kristi Johnston, who recorded a wonderful record, “That Would Be Fine” for Stony Plain Records back in 2000. Alas, when the CD came out Kristi disappeared from public view; she cut back on her live appearances in the Winnipeg area, and then stopped performing altogether. When she died earlier this month, following a fall, she was telling friends that she wanted to get back into music. Kristi was 35, and she had previously released an album on the Stony Plain label and had been a featured vocalist at the Women’s Blues Revue.

Anyone who knows me well, has at some point been pinholed and lectured on my feelings about Doug Riley.

It usually goes something like this: “Well that cat can play but, for my money there is no better, well rounded musician in the WORLD than Doug Riley.” “Whoa”, is the usual reply.” What about Oscar Peterson, Billy Preston, Jimmy Smith, Richard Tee, Bill Payne, Chuck Leavel, Matt Rollins, Leon Russell etc .... Glen Gould?”

My reply: It’s not that Oscar may swing harder, or Billy may lay down some gospel as well, or that Jimmy can walk a jazz left hand as fast as Doug, but Doug could do all that and more. I have never heard anyone as versatile and well versed and immersed in so many styles as Doug. He just didn’t play a style. He owned it. You believed when he was playing ‘bop’ for instance that it was all he ever played. Yet when you heard him wail on R&B and Blues, you never heard a tinge of Bop. He could play stride piano with a lope, that only comes from playing it your whole life, yet turn around and play organ like he was raised in a southern Baptist choir. All styles covered. Whether show piano with Michael Burgess or Rock keys with Bob Seger .... always just right and always so musical.

And THAT is the point. Piano and organ!! Tell me anyone else who is as fluid and versatile on both, to the point that you could never tell whether he was a pianist who played organ or an organist playing piano. He had mastered both. This is what made Doug so very special and unique. Doug was a master of his craft and all us musicians (especially the brotherhood of keyboard players) knew it.

Doug was one of those rare and gifted musicians who could turn a score into music the first read through. Listen to ‘Steel Onions’ with Michael Fonfara (no slouch himself). What you hear is the third run through, second take. First run through to check for any chart mistakes and the roadmap. The second run through was slower at my request, but did not find a groove. Doug suggested trying it a little faster. (You listened to Doug’s suggestions.) The second take was music. Magic. It is as if he had played the song for years. And he had only seen it 15 minutes before!! A classic performance. I felt sorry for Fonf because he had to follow Doug’s solo .... not an enviable position. But he answered with a great solo himself.

What you may not know about Doug Riley, if you had not had the pleasure of meeting him, was his warmth, honesty and gentle nature. He was a true gentleman. With his quiet calm he was a rock, and he anchored every session and performance he was on. When Doug kicked off a tune, it already had a heavy groove before it got to you. All you had to do was get on board for the ride.

From 1968 on, I idolized Doug Riley. He was my idol, from a time before T.V. shows devalued that word. Doug, along with Oscar Peterson and Glenn Gould gave this kid from Ottawa the inspiration to believe that a Canadian could aspire to be the best in the world, and carve out a career for themselves in music. Oscar is a giant and Glenn was an eccentric genius but Doug was most like me, and is who I really aspired to. He was the master craftsman and had eclectic tastes.

So you can imagine how much it meant to me years later when I was the musical director for my first big live TV awards show. Doug and Salome Bey were to close off the show with a rollicking gospel number. I had written, arranged and conducted the whole show and at the end through the chaos of backstage, Doug made a point of searching me out and said, “I thought you did a great job tonight. I’ve done these things before, and i know how hectic they can be, but you did a great job.” Coming from Doug, that meant the world to me. Yet he was famous for offering quiet, yet sincere encouragement and was famously unassuming about his own abilities and accomplishments. (I once played a CD launch for Debbie Fleming and Doug had played on the CD. I had dutifully learned his parts and reproduced them. Doug came to the CD launch and sat down in front of the piano. When I met him for the first time after the set, he commented on how much he liked my playing. I said, “ Doug, I’m just playing your parts back to you.” He laughed and said, “ Well I stole them all from Ray Charles in the first place, so they are yours now”.)

The memory of Doug that I will hold in my heart is the last time Dominic Troiano played at the Orbit Room in T.O. Dominic was in a lot of pain and would die within months. He was weak but determined to play. The place was packed .... we were shoulder to shoulder... all mostly musicians. Doug gave Dominic the performance of his life that night and you could see how Dominic’s spirits were lifted. Doug was on FIRE! All the keyboard players in the audience (and I could count ten from where i stood), could only look at each other and shake their heads in disbelief. It was that good. That godamned, unbelievably, freaking good. The master was on that night and we all could just go hang up our organ shoes. Dominic was initially tentative but it was obvious from the start that Doug had come to play, and wasn’t going to ‘take it easy’ on the sick guy. Every breathtaking organ solo energized Dominic and he began to stand taller and soon adopted the famous Troiano stance and attitude. By the end of the first set Donnie was answering in kind. It was a remarkable example of the power of music. and a beautiful gift that Doug gave his old friend and us all, that night. I will never forget it.

I considered Doug as a brother in arms. As one who has also lifted, struggled with, coerced and cajoled Hammond B3s (450lbs) and tried to keep 30 year old Leslies spinning, all my life, I feel we Hammond players have a special kinship and have shared the same ‘love of our lives’.

Doug Riley is a national institution, a national treasure. His loss is devastating to the Toronto and Canadian music scene. He has single-handedly produced, arranged, recorded and written on more LP’s, CD’s, TV and radio shows, jingles and concerts than anybody in Canada, ever. His output was astounding, and his energy was unsurpassed. Ask the thousands who have benefited from his wonderful musicianship and his gentle nature.
You can’t ask me. My world has changed, and I can’t yet imagine it without Doug. Without his many words of encouragement that always meant the world to me. But most of all for the lifetime of musical bliss I was witness to. To catch Doug live was an awe inspiring experience.

The bar has been set. I can’t imagine anyone raising it. Certainly no one with Doug’s gentle style, grace, integrity and soul.

You used your gifts well Doug. Thank You. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I miss you today here in the rain on this dreary Newfoundland beach and I feel I should do something in remembrance of you. Something small but ubiquitous..... a dedication .....a promise....Yes... I will think of you every time I turn on a Hammond and hear that starter motor kick in, the vibrations in my fingers .... the beast awakened.

As this eminently readable biography of Long John Baldry points out, he was much more than a footnote in the growing history of contemporary popular music. Without exception, his friends and colleagues from the 60’s - Elton John,. Rod Stewart, Mick Fleetwood, Chris Barber, Paul McCartney and more - all express their certainty that Baldry was a convincing blues performer who influenced a whole generation of British artists and significantly played a major role in the development of British blues.

Six foot seven inches tall - and wearing stacked boots when he discovered that not very tall people were walking around taller than he was - Baldry had discovered Leadbelly on record, and heard Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy on their initial tours of Britain. Amazingly, despite his stature, his upper-class British accent and mannerisms, he was totally believable as a blues singer, and his idiosyncrasies, his over-the-top fashion sense and his height made him, quite literally, stand out from the crowd.

Paul Myers tells the man’s story in a straightforward manner, relying on interviews with Baldry’s friends, lovers, fellow musicians, and those who may have overtaken him in the race for fame but who never forgot him. Quotes from almost every newspaper, magazine or radio or television show who ever interviewed him - from local weeklies in small UK towns to the New York Times - help build the story.

John’s hard living, his ability to be last one to leave any party, his drinking and his careless diet, resulted in a series of health problems that eventually beat him. He did, however, earn loyal support from Edmonton’s Stony Plain Records, which released his final five records. The last one, Remembering Leadbelly, was released in 2001, and contains a snippet of a recording he made in a kitchen in Cornwall when he was 17 - a perfect example of a circle being closed.

Tate's Vintage Gallery

With all the great harmonica players appearing at the Dollar this month, what better time to acknowledge some pioneers of the that diminutive but powerful instrument, the "Mississippi saxophone", the "pocket piano", our beloved blues harp. Here is another in our ongoing series of revealing portraits of relatively obscure artists who dared to be different written by Blues aficionado and reporter Gary Tate. Gary welcomes your comments at gmtgt@yahoo.com.

Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats: They made history with 1947’s “Peg O’ My Heart”, the first massively popular harmonica-based recording. This old-time standard took the world by storm, selling 1.4 million copies, and generating an incredible 17 copycat versions. The trio sustained their popularity into the 1980’s.

The Harmonicats gave respectability to a once belittled instrument by showcasing the panorama of ear-pleasing sounds culled from the mouth organ. Jerry Murad devised a set-up akin to a harmonica orchestra: a revolutionary configuration featuring a lead chromatic (Jerry); bass harmonica (Don Les); and the Hohner, a 2-foot long chording harmonica (Al Fiore) employed to carry out functions similar to a rhythm guitar.

Murad appreciated the recording studio’s potential for upgrading matters through incorporation of the echo chamber sound effect. It afforded everything a totally new dimension, and the public responded with unbridled appreciation.

In 1925, 6-year old Turkish immigrant Jerry Muradian imagined the harmonica as his pathway to success. By the 1940’s, he was playing with Borah Minnevitch’s Harmonica Rascals (featuring Johnny Puleo). In 1944, Murad formed his own group.

Landing a permanent gig in 1946 at Chicago’s Club Vodvil was their big break; within a year, “Peg O’ My Heart” expanded the Harmonicats’ fame to international proportions.

The Harmonicats enduring repertoire work is featured on their 1961 album titled, “Greatest Hits: Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White”. Its 22 tracks sound like a throwback to the past, but they’re guaranteed to ease the stresses of modern life.

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