Life After Memphis

Things have been a bit of a blur since I returned victorious from the IBC in late January.  After a little flurry of media attention and another award (this time from the Calgary Blues Music Association...Lifetime Achievement/Hall of Fame) it was time to get back to gigging...after losing and regaining my wallet in the airport, waking up my wife to help pay the towncar driver, getting up for interviews, and a lovely Tuesday night celebration/gig at Mikey's Juke Joint  I played the Calgary Mid-Winter Blues festival with my friend Fruteland Jackson, and Edmonton's Roots & Blues of Folkways winter event (a concert with Del Rey and a panel with Del and the great Allen Toussaint).  A few more gigs in Alberta (including the lovely Ye Olde Jar Bar house concerts, outside Medicine Hat) and it was time to head for Victoria.  A fund-raiser for Blue Bridge Theatre (I would spend the next 4 weeks there as musical director) and a lovely gig for the Victoria Blues Society at The Upper Deck included visits with friends Jason Buie, Tom Gough and Dave "Slim" Harris.  I also got a chance to sit in with David Vest at his cd release for the great "Roadhouse Revelation" disc, at Hermann's Jazz Club.  After opening night, and a house concert within a stone's throw of the ferry terminal, it was time to head to the Hornby Island Blues Week.

Hornby remains one of my faves, a great teaching environment in the company of fine musicians and a chance to hang with friends I've made on the Island over the years.  Following the annual instructors' concert in Courtenay on Vancouver Island, I played a house concert in Campbell River before returning briefly to Calgary.  Then the lovely Dream Cafe in Penticton, a one-nighter in Edgewood, B.C. and home (where the incredibly patient staff at Mikey's Juke Joint and The Blues Can keep my house gigs open to me when I'm not on the road).  Festival season began with The North Country Fair, up north by Lesser Slave Lake, then the Portland Waterfront Blues Fest in Oregon (and a chance to catch up with Leo "Bud" Welch and Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton), Islands Folk Festival (Duncan, B.C.), Mission (B.C.) Folk Festival,Calgary Blues Festival and The Heritage Blues Festival (Wheeling, West Virginia).  Tonight it's Mikey's Juke Joint here in Cowtown, then a week-end teaching at the Foothills Acoustic Music Institute west of Calgary, plus closing the show at the Mountain Shadow fest in Cochrane AB this Sunday.  Back at Mikey's next Tuesday, then the Hot Springs Blues Festival in Arkansas, and a week of holidays with my hone on Gabriola Island.  Therest of September I'll be in town, then playing the Rhythm and Blues Cruise down the west coast of Mexico; the Yukon Roots & Blues festival in Whitehorse, a tour of Saskatchewan, and the first week of November in Southern Ontario.

Come on out, catch a show and say howdy !