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4. Marc Atkinson Trio & Black Gardenia, Saturday April 23rd 8pm, St. James Hall (3214 West 10th Avenue)
One of Canada’s most accomplished and innovative guitarists, Hornby Island’s Marc Atkinson’s compositions are punchy, driving and rhythmically inventive. The tunes have a fiery but elegant style, infused with a catchy blend of influences. All the while maintaining the laid-back humour and casual “good time feel” of Canada’s West Coast. His music is original, complex and challenging in its conception and delivery but remains accessible and absorbing. With Brett Marten on rhythm and Scott White on bass, the music of this fine trio welcomes all listeners aboard for an intriguing, exhilarating and unforgettable ride. www.marcatkinson.ca
Daphne Roubini playfully named ”First Lady of Uke” sings and plays the Ukulele in her band Black Gardenia, the Vancouver-based five-piece whose ‘London Jazz meets Americana’ sound has delighted festival and club audiences on two continents. With their unique, darkly-relaxed blend of vintage jazz, country, folk and blues from the 20s, 30s and 40s, Black Gardenia takes listeners on a journey to an age where cool meant classy and noir was the norm. (Watch for a Django jam session between Marc Atkinson and Paul Pigat - the lead guitarist in Black Gardenia. It was a festival high-point a couple of years back! ) www.blackgardenia.ca
For tickets and show details click here |
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5. A Mighty String Thing, Sunday April 24th 8pm, St. James Hall (3214 West 10th Avenue)
'An eclectic group of string wizards come together to present an evening of ear candy from various roots music traditions.'
If you've ever been to a folk festival, you know what can happen when artists of different musical persuasions get together. We're talking once-in-a-lifetime musical moments that leave everyone in the house - both the players AND the listeners going "Wow, did that really happen?". They're usually served up with some great stories and a side order of laughter too. This unique evening will be a night of exceptional guitar music to round out a week of celebration of the guitar pioneer Django Reinhardt. I'm sure he would have been enthralled. Here is a rundown of the superb players who will play in the round. This is a show that you should not miss.
Kevin Breit hails from McKerrow, Ontario (pop. 551), just west of Sudbury. As anyone who's lived in a small town knows, you have to make your own fun and in the Breit house, that meant music. Kevin taught himself to play the guitar and grew up jamming with his brothers before heading down to Toronto when he was 17. Since then, he's recorded and/or toured with more then 100 artists including k.d. lang, Hugh Laurie, Natalie McMaster, Lou Reed, Holly Cole, Bill Frisell, Roseanne Cash, Celine Dion and his sister Sue. Recordings he's worked on have won 13 Grammy Awards for artists like Cassandra Wilson and Norah Jones. Along the way, he's also become frighteningly proficient on the mandolin and the banjo.
In the late 80s, Doug Cox heard dobro master Jerry Douglas in concert and fell in love with the sound. The next day, he saw a dobro for sale and soon he was practicing five hours a day and studying with masters like Bob Brozman and Orville Johnson. He was the first featured Dobro player at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and the first Canadian invited to Dobrofest in the birthplace of the Slovakian brothers who invented the Dobro. He's an in-demand teacher at music camps across Canada and in Alaska, Texas, England and Slovenia and the creator of 8 instructional books and DVDs. It's one of several stringed things he's good at, including the Weissenborn, mandolin and guitar. He's brought these musical voices to projects like Slide to Freedom (with Indian mohan veena player Salil Bhatt and tablitha Ramkumar Mishra), Strung (with fiddler April Verch and guitarist Tony McManus) and his own solo projects. He's played at some of roots music's most intimate stages, including the Yellow Door, the Blacksheep Inn and The Freight and Salvage as well as every major folk festival across the country. He's also the artistic director of the highly-regarded Vancouver Island MusicFest and a proud grandfather.
Some musicians pick up their guitar and go lookin' for a groove. Cecile Doo-Kingue seems to live in one. Her music is based in the blues, but it comes with a solid side of funk and there's more than a dash of jazz in her changes up and down the neck. Cecile is what you might call ambi-sonic. She can bring it on acoustic or electric and it's all good. But real blues come from real life and Cecile's lyrics speak to just that, with songs about racism, homophobia and poverty as well as good times, love and lust. She's got an edge in her voice that makes it sound like it's been around, and it has - her parents moved from Cameroon to New York city, where she was born and raised as the youngest of eight kids. From New York, she moved to France and then to Montreal in 1995, where she's made music with Montreal Jubilation Choir, Blind Boys of Alabama, Michael Jerome Brown, Scarlett Jane and United Steel Workers of Montreal to name a few. If by chance Cecile may be new to your ears, you're in for a fine time.
Sam Hurrie grew up in Toronto, where one night he accidentally tuned a black radio station broadcasting John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen" across the lake from the States. It was the first blues he'd ever heard and it changed his life. By the mid-60s, he had an R&B band hot enough to be the house band at the Scene, one of the hottest clubs in New York City. People like John Lennon and Paul McCartney came down to hear them. Sam found himself jamming with Jimi Hendrix and opening for his idol, Muddy Waters. When that gig ended, they toured all over America, working hard but never catching a break and eventually, for Sam, the road got old. Family drew him north to Powell River where he found work in a paper mill and as he says starting in about 1970, I took 35 years off. His love for the blues led him to studying on blues history and applying what he learned to his guitar playing. When his time at the mill was done, he began performing again, older, wiser and still committed to what Hooker made so clear - "the groove is the thing".
Bill Kirchen's skills have earned him the title of "The Titan of The Telecaster" by Guitar Player magazine, but his musical life actually began on the trombone at Ann Arbor High School. During his student days at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, he picked up banjo and guitar and formed a band that ultimately turned into Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Bill played with them from 1967 to the mid-1970s, and that's him you hear on tracks like "Down to Seeds and Stems Again Blues" and "Hot Rod Lincoln". He plays a 1959 model Tele, with a maple fretboard and sunburst finish that he acquired in 1967 when he exchanged his Gibson SG with a stranger on a bus. His sound's called "diesel-billy" - rock 'n' roll and country music drawing on blues and bluegrass, Western swing and California honky-tonk. He's recorded with Nick Lowe, Emmylou Harris, Doug Sahm, Elvis Costello, Gene Vincent, and Link Wray and many others. These days, he calls Austin home and in the words of the Austin-American Statesman - "Bill Kirchen rules, it's just that simple...".
Mark Stuart's musical education started early, listening to his uncle play the guitar while his dad played fiddle. By the time he was fifteen, it was high school by day and playing guitar by night in his dad's band in various honky-tonks and beer joints around Nashville. At seventeen, he found himself in ever-increasing demand to go out on the road as lead guitarist and vocalist for acts like Freddy Fender, Jonnell Mosser and Joan Baez. One of his fondest memories is touring with Steve Earle in the 1990s as one of the Dukes, appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and doing gigs with Neil Young. Along the way, he met a young guitar player and singer named Stacy Earle who was also a former Duke and Steve's sister. They've been together ever since and much of his time has been devoted to a husband-wife duo, "Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart". They started their own label and have toured across North America and Europe while releasing several acclaimed albums together. His own music reflects the music he heard at home and all he's learned along the way, from the blues to country and folk to rock and it's all the sound of someone doing exactly what they always wanted to do.
For tickets and show details click here |
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6. Radio Waves
Tune in to The Edge On Folk - hosted by me, Steve Edge - this Saturday from 8am to noon to hear some fabulous guitar music, a feature on Afro Celt Sound System, a celebration of St. George's Day, and much more. You can listen live on CiTR fm 101.9 and www.citr.ca
A Podcast of the show will be available later in the week on CiTR's website.
You can also hear a great mix of music on Radio Rogue (Rogue without end, amen!) 
Here I am with Deanna Knight backstage at April In Paris 2015. I like this game!
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