The blues harp, or harmonica, is the most instantly recognizable instrument associated with the blues. From the late 1920’s through to the present era the role of the harmonica in blues has developed alongside the music itself. From pioneers Sonny Boy Williamson and Sonny Terry through to post Second World War artists like Little Walter, Junior Wells and Charlie Musselwhite, the blues harp has played a pivotal role in the blues. Mark Hummel has been presenting his Blues Harp Blowout to sellout crowds throughout California since 1991. Presented for the first time in Canada, this edition brings together three modern day masters who couple their command of the instrument with singing, songwriting and performance second to none. They are backed by Hummel’s crack road band, The Blues Survivors.

Mark Hummel was born in New Haven Connecticut and raised in Los Angeles. Bitten with the blues bug in his teens, he began playing harmonica in the style of his major influences, including James Cotton, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Walter. He moved to Berkeley California in the early 70’s and by the end of that decade was fronting his own band, The Blues Survivors. After close to 20 years of non-stop touring and the release of 7 albums, Hummel is achieving some of the recognition and success he so richly deserves.

James Harman was born in Anniston Alabama in 1946. He may live in California today but his music clearly reflects his southern roots. He began performing just over 40 years ago, in 1962 and since then has staked his claim as an original, legitimate blues artist and musician. It’s “Strictly the blues” Harman has said. He creates music that, while original, is steeped in the styles of Big Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Tampa Red and Junior Parker. James Harman has released 20 CD’s, 4 EP’s and 9 singles since the mid-60’s. He’s received no less than 8 W.C. Handy nominations and is a member of the Alabama music hall of fame. James Harman returns to the stage of Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival after ripping the roof of the joint with a spectacular, impassioned performance in 2000.

Only in the last few years has Snooky Pryor begun to receive credit for his role in shaping the amplified Chicago sound of the postwar era. At 82 years of age, Snooky Pryor is not only a living link to the postwar Chicago blues scene, but a vital, exciting performer and recording artist. He learned to play harmonica as a young boy growing up in the Mississippi Delta and first turned up in Chicago in 1940. After settling there in 1945, he proceeded to put out a series of classic sides for Planet, Vee-Jay and JOB records. He’s long claimed to be the first harpist to run his sound through a public address system in Chicago. After a break from the music business, Snooky has released 14 albums since 1973 and worked with Sunnyland Slim, Homesick James, Mel Brown and many others. Hear a true living legend Friday night at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival when Snooky Pryor takes the stage with Mark Hummel’s Blues Harp Blow Out.

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival endeavors to bring at least one or two acts in every year that are not well known, but deserve wider recognition due to their incredible talent. In the past, we have introduced Edmonton audiences to Shemekia Copeland, Janiva Magness and Big Jack Johnson to name a few.

This year, Tom Rigney and Flambeau is the band to watch. Fiddler Tom Rigney has been part of the San Francisco Bay area roots scene for over 25 years. Tom joined Queen Ida’s Bon Temps Zydeco Band and toured the world in 1983 and 1984. There, he developed a love of Cajun, Zydeco and New Orleans second line dance grooves. These elements were a major part of his next band, The Sundogs.  The Sundogs were together for 15 years, released 7 albums and performed at numerous major festivals, concerts and nightclubs.

In the late 90’s Tom formed “Flambeau”. Their eclectic repertoire includes blues, Cajun/Zydeco dance grooves, beautiful waltzes and above all, moving and memorable melodies created by Rigney.

Flambeau features Danny Caron, best known as guitarist and music director for the late great Charles Brown. Among his credits are stints with Clifton Chenier and Marcia Ball.

Caroline Dahl plays piano and accordion and brings a strong element of boogie-woogie and New Orleans-style piano playing to the band.

Drummer Jimmy Sanchez is in high demand in the Bay area and was last seen in Edmonton working with Roy Rogers at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival in 2002.

Bassist Pat Campbell is rock-solid. His big tone and deep groove anchors the bottom end of the Flambeau sound.

Get ready to hit the dance floor running as Tom Rigney and Flambeau take the stage Saturday August 23^rd.

Sarah Streeter, A.K.A. Big Time Sarah, was born in Coldwater Mississippi in 1953. She came to Chicago at the age of 7 and received early vocal training in church choirs on the South Side. She began to sit in at South Side blues clubs, singing with Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Magic Sam. The great Willie Dixon even wrote four songs just for her. But Streeter credits Sunnyland Slim with inspiring her the most. Sarah sat in with him and his band a couple of times and before she knew it she was on a plane bound for Europe on a tour with Sunnyland Slim and John Lee Hooker. It was on this tour that Sunnyland Slim coined her nickname “Big Time” because of her grand career ambitions and her ability to “talk the talk”. Since then, Sarah has “walked the walk” touring the world extensively playing festivals, clubs and concerts. She appeared at the first annual Chicago Blues Festival in 1984.

“Lay it on ‘em Girls” is the title of the most recent recording by Big Time Sarah and it has been met with superlative reviews including this, from Pamela Lucia of The New Review of Records. “Chicago blues singer Sarah Streeter not only has a powerful and expressive voice, but is also blessed with a bravado reminiscent of the great Etta James. Using a combination of blues, soul and jazz standards, she performs each style with vocal dexterity.” More to the point, Ed Burks, of The King Biscuit Times, simply says, “A dynamite release”.

Sarah has been nominated for a W.C. Handy Award in the category “Traditional Blues- Female Artist of the Year” for 2003.

Discover for yourself, the talent that is Big Time Sarah, Saturday, August 23^rd.

Born in England in 1948, internationally acclaimed slide guitarist Dave Hole moved with his family to Perth Australia as a small child. He fell in love with the blues at an early age and wanted to hear more, but because of Perth’s isolation it was difficult to find blues records. It was even rarer to hear blues performed live. Persistence paid off and eventually Dave got his hands on records by Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, Elmore James and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Hole listened to those recordings over and over again, until he knew the licks, then began playing music that mystified his contemporaries. That music was the blues, slide guitar blues.

Hole was forced to come up with a unique method of slide playing after injuring his little finger. Instead of waiting for his finger to heal, he put the slide over his index finger and hung his hand over the guitar neck, instantly creating his own sound and style.

Hole played in Australia until 1990, when he financed and recorded an album on his own, primarily to sell at gigs. On a whim, he sent a copy to Guitar Player magazine. The magazine reviewed it in April 1991 and did a July 1991 feature story that launched Hole into the blues stratosphere. “Magnificent slide work…ferocious, fire-breathing. What more could you ask?”

A copy of the album landed on the desk of Bruce Iglauer, president of Alligator Records. Iglauer released the album and Dave Hole became the labels’ only overseas signing. Iglauer said, “I usually like to work with artists who are constantly touring the U.S., but love of the music overcame my good business sense.”

6 albums later, Dave Hole has become a bona fide slide guitar hero. Billboard exclaimed, “Slide guitar fanatics will have their brains blown out by this Australian fret-melter…remarkably inventive…prepare to hear your jaw hitting the floor.” Living Blues shouted, “A one way ticket to sonic joy.”

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is proud to present Dave Hole in his only Canadian appearance this year, through special arrangement with Bruce Iglauer and Alligator Records. Don’t miss your chance to see this incredible performer, Saturday August 23^rd.

“Whoever the house band in blues heaven may be, even money says they’re wearing out Magic Slim albums trying to get that Teardrops sound down cold. Slim fronts the most consistently excellent outfit around” Blues Revue

Magic Slim stands as the greatest living proponent of the intense, electrified, Mississippi to Chicago blues style that has spawned much of the music played by modern blues artists and rockers.

Born in Torrence, Mississippi in 1937, Slim took an early interest in music, singing and playing piano in the church choir. At age 11, Slim moved to Grenada, Mississippi, where he met and became friends with Magic Sam (who gave him his nickname years later in Chicago). When Slim made his first trip to Chicago in 1955, Magic Sam hired him to play bass. After returning to Mississippi to hone his craft, Magic Slim returned to Chicago in the early 60’s to stay. He formed the Teardrops in the early 70’s and has been providing no frills, in your face Chicago blues with a high-energy delivery that will leave you breathless, ever since.

The Teardrops have toured the world and in 1989 appeared at the first ever blues festival in Brazil, where the press is quoted as saying he “stole the show, upstaging Buddy Guy, Etta James and Albert Collins.”

Magic Slim and the Teardrops have been nominated as the “Blues Band of the Year” at the W.C. Handy Awards 6 out of the last seven years. This year, Magic Slim is up for no less than 5 W.C Handy Awards including “Guitarist”, “Entertainer”, Traditional Blues-Male Artist of the Year”, Blues Band of the Year” and “Album of the Year” for the release “Blue Magic”.

Living Blues magazine says “Magic Slim consistently offers no-frills houserockin’ blues. He and his band are a national treasure.”

Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is pleased and proud to bring Magic Slim and the Teardrops to Edmonton audiences for the first time, Saturday, August 23^rd

Duke Robillard used to be a guitarist’s guitarist... a secret treasure of the six-string fraternity. No more. Duke has been stepping out front and commanding the attention he so richly deserves as “The world’s best living jump-blues guitarist” as LA Weekly described him and as “One of his generation’s most astonishingly versatile guitarists…from blues to jump to swing to rock to jazz”, according to Guitar magazine.

Since 1967, when singer/guitarist Robillard founded Roomful of Blues, he’s been hopping planes, loading vans and riding trains as he’s criss-crossed the globe, playing thousands of gigs, everywhere from clubs to major league festivals like the Montreux Jazz and Newport Rhythm and Blues. Over the years Robillard has absorbed a little of everything from the people he’s worked with. Johnny Adams B.B. King, Big Joe Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Snooky Prior, Ruth Brown, Cleanhead Vinson and many more have all contributed to the range and repertoire of Duke Robillard. Duke is also a Grammy nominated producer, who has recorded with the Rockin’ Highliners, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Hammond, Jay McShann and many more in his Rhode Island recording studio. His prodigious recorded output includes over 20 albums as a leader and over 30 working with the likes of Kim Wilson, Roomful of Blues, Bob Dylan, Pinetop Perkins and Ruth Brown. This year he won the Maple Blues Award as “International Artist of the Year”, and this year he won the Maple Blues Award as International Artist of the Year and the W.C. Handy as "Guitarist of the Year".  Robillard brings his crack touring band to the stage of Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival that includes baritone saxophonist and recording artist in his own right, Doug James.

Ruth Brown

They call Atlantic records “the house that Ruth built”. Ruth Brown’s string of hits from 1949 to the close of the 50’s established the New York label’s predominance in the R&B field.

Jazz chanteuses Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington inspired young Ruth Weston. She ran away from her Portsmouth, Virginia home in 1945 to hit the road with trumpeter Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married. By 1949 she had cut her first big hit, “So Long”, and was well on her way to R&B stardom. She had huge hits with “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean”, “Teardrops From My Eyes” and “5-10-15 Hours.” She toured the 50’s with the likes of Sam Cooke, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie and Jackie Wilson, but quit the music business in 1960.

The music world forgot about Ruth through most of the 60’s and 70’s, but in the early 80’s her career began a renaissance that has continued to this day. In 1993 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has released 10 critically acclaimed albums of her own since 1980. She’s appeared on albums with Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Charles Brown, B.B. King and Johnny Adams and had a role in the hilarious film “Hairspray”. Her long fight with Atlantic Records over royalties resulted in the establishment of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which provides financial help to artists from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s who need it. She continues to urge the establishment of pension funds, a retirement home for those artists and educational programs about the music.

As the title of her 1997 album states, “R + B = Ruth Brown”.Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival is proud to present a living piece of R & B history as legendary, vital, regal, indomitable, R&B diva Ruth Brown hits the stage, working with the Duke Robillard Band, Saturday August 23^rd.

Best known to most blues fans as a founding member of Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women, Ann Rabson is also a compelling solo performer whose love for the blues goes back to her early childhood. She heard Big Bill Broonzy at the age of four and while she may have been too young to understand the lyrics of the song she says, “His music spoke directly to me.” The blues has been both a source of joy and a shelter in difficult times ever since.

Ann’s style was developed from years of listening to such masters of the blues as Jimmy Yancey, Sunnyland Slim, Bessie Smith, Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie. Ann is proficient on her first instrument, the guitar, and on piano, which she took up at 35. Downbeat magazine stated that Ann Rabson plays piano with “Staggering authority”, and has “one of the best left hands in the business.”

An accomplished composer of blues songs, she penned many of Saffires’ most requested tunes including the W.C. Handy nominated “Elevator Man”, along with “Tom Cat Blues” and “Hey Girls, Don’t Treat Your Man Like a Dog”.

This year marks the seventh time Ann has been nominated for a W.C. Handy Award, this time as the “Traditional Blues- Female Artist of the Year”.

The Boston Herald calls her “simply irresistible”. With her expert guitar work, piano playing and soulful vocals that express the humour and pain of the blues so will you. Ann Rabson kicks off our show Sunday, August 24^th.

Paul Reddick is a self taught harmonica ace who lists Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Alan Lomax field recordings made in the 40’s as his prime musical influences. As a songwriter, he cites poets William Blake, Kenneth Rexrox and William Carlos Williams as being responsible for his willingness to explore and express himself through music. His personal musical style embraces his strong, soulful vocals that have an intensity and intimacy. His harmonica playing is a blend of complex rhythmic patterns, soaring solo lines and great dynamic range, tone and phrasing.

The Sidemen have been together for over a decade, forging a brand of hard and steady blues that truly advances the form. They have toured with Buddy Guy and Colin James, opened for B.B. King, James Cotton, John Mayall, Joe Louis Walker and Koko Taylor. In 1994 they won the Jazz Report “Blues Group of the Year” award, and 1995 saw their second album “When the Sun Goes Down” nominated for a Juno in the “Best Blues/Gospel Recording” category.

Together, Paul Reddick + the Sidemen have managed to blend their many influences into a groove-driven style that can rally rock the house. The band and its members were nominated for no less than 9 Maple Blues Awards in 2002 and won as the “Electric Act of the Year”, “Songwriter of the Year” and “Recording of the Year” for the incredible “Rattlebag” disc.

Clearly one of Canada’s top blues groups, make sure you catch Paul Reddick and the Sidemen, Sunday August 24^th at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival.

“If Texas roots music is a bowl of chips, then accordion whiz Ponty Bone is the salsa that spices it up!” Tony Peyser, Santa Monica Mirror.

Texas has produced an incredible array of unique talents over the years and accordionist, singer and songwriter Ponty Bone may be one of the most unique, ever.

Ponty was born in Dallas, raised in San Antonio, lived 15 years in Lubbock and has been a huge part of the Austin scene for the last 18 years. Known as a “musicians musician”, he has lent his talent to recordings by Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely, Ronnie Lane, Alejandro Escovedo, Hans Theesink, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Chris Gaffney and many others.

Labeling or defining Ponty’s music is a daunting task. He has played the accordion all his life, and moves between Texas blues, Louisiana Zydeco, Tex/Mex and even Caribbean styles with ease. Asked to define his music Ponty said, “When it comes to my music, I go in the direction my writing leads me. But I guess my music will always be rooted in blues and R&B, with the occasional Third World rhythm thrown in.”

Flaco Jiminez considers Ponty the “Real McCoy of Soul Accordion Playing.”

However you define it, one thing is certain. Ponty Bone and the Squeezetones bring great grooves and good times wherever they go

Ponty Bone last played Edmonton in the late 80’s at The City Media Club. Join us Sunday afternoon at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival as we reintroduce Edmonton audiences to a true Texas original, Ponty Bone.

Omar Kent Dykes was born in 1950 in McComb, Mississippi, the same town that produced Bo Diddley. At home, the air was filled with the sounds of Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, Howlin’ Wolf and Credence Clearwater Revival. Omar first set foot in neighbourhood juke joints at the age of 12. After becoming proficient at guitar he returned to those same juke joints as a player. In an interview with Guitar Player magazine Omar said, “I played in a band when I was thirteen and the next youngest guy was fifty. We played some rough joints-we called them gun and knife clubs. If you were tough enough to be in there, you were old enough."

Eventually, Omar made his way to Austin Texas. The year was 1976, and Omar and the Howlers, a band he had been leading for 6 years, became one of the hottest groups on the scene along with Stevie Ray Vaughan and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Omar and the Howlers proceeded to build a large and loyal following world-wide, through a regimen of constant touring, incendiary live shows and a prolific recording output that included no less than 9 albums on 5 different labels in the 1990’s.

The Dallas Morning News stated “Omar’s in-your-face vocals and roundhouse guitar playing flow with the power of a bayou at flood stage.” The Chicago Sun Times raves, “Omar and the Howlers present raw, sensual swamp boogie blues at its best.”

Anyone who has seen Omar and the Howlers live will attest to the fact that the man delivers a show that leaves audiences gasping for breath and howling for more. Catch Omar and the Howlers Sunday August 24^th at Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival.