Meet on my driveway Tuesday Feb. 27th at 5am to pack the Van.
Our first show is Tuesday evening Feb. 27th in Sault Ste. Marie.
We'll drive straight there, arrive at 4pm, check into the Hotel and then get ready for the load in and sound check at 6pm. Show time is 8pm but has been moved to 9pm, no worries, minor discrepancy.

It's our first time in the Sault and I have to ad that this was a make-shift gig which was largely anchored by an old friend of mine "Finola", from my Kensington Market days. Finola is a girl with a great spirit, vibe and zeal for life. Many thanks to her and the Bar owner Steve for putting this show together and taking the chance on us in the dead of winter, on a Tuesday night.

I would also like to ad that our show was "stolen" by Finola's mother. There will be no need for disclosing anyone's age but I will say this, she was the youngest one in the bar that night.

Cheers to Finola's mom. She totally Rocked out all night long in spite of the fact that she had to catch a Greyhound bus to Sudbury at 7am that very morning.

We're not trying to take anything away from all the others in attendance that evening, who also Rocked hard for a Tuesday night. All of which, I'm certain, would stand behind our praise for Finola's mom.
Thanks Finola, your parents, friends and the rest of the Sault for a great evening. We'll see you soon...

Load out that night was around 3:30pm, now we've been going for over 24 hours. Time for some shut eye.

Check out time, 11am. and we're on our way to Dryden where we'll spend the night in order to split our drive to Winnipeg.

Well, two hours into our drive we encounter our first little adversity. Someone in the Van (won't mention names) needs to use mother nature. I go to pull over onto the shoulder and we're immediately sucked into a ditch and wedged into a snow bank halfway up the side of the van...

Anyway, a guy making a fried chicken delivery asks if we're waiting for a cab. We say "Yes”, he say's "you wont get a cab here, want a lift for $5”? "Sure Man". and we get into his Mr. Bean sized delivery car and he drops us off at the club right for 10pm. We open the door to the club and Dan and Shane are panicking because they didn't know what happened to us and the place was PACKED...People Buzzing...waiting to explode...we go directly to the stage and count it off. We played our normal two long sets taking us right to 2am and the people Rocked with us the whole time.

Our only problem at this point was we heard that a storm was blowing in soon. It was close to 3am by the time we packed our stuff and we had the option of getting a few hours of sleep and getting back on the road at around 6am or....ha...leaving NOW.
Well...what do you think we should do??? So we go back to the hotel, change and check out. Beds...untouched.
We pack the Van, go gas up. Get a coffee and we're back on the road by 4am

We checked out at 11am and started our trek to Winnipeg. It was only supposed to be a 4 hour drive but ended up being a little longer. It was during this drive that we quickly discovered that driving through the prairies, at all times, is very nerve racking. Even if it's not snowing because the hwy is so open there are always great squalls and blowing winds decreasing visibility and control.

We get into Winnipeg at around 5pm and go straight to the club to do the sound check. Again, our show time has been moved from 8pm to 10pm. Van Morrison was doing a show in town just down the street from 7:30 to 9pm and the people at the bar we were playing "The Windsor" thought we might be able to get some of his crowd after his show ends. Made sense. So we complied. It worked out well because we did get many people from Van's show...

We went to the hotel to check in and leave us just enough time to get settled in, eat and change to get back to the club for about 9pm. Chuck and I were running late so Dan and Shane went to the club with the van and Chuck and I were going to take a cab to the club...here lies our second funny little episode.
We go down to the lobby and call a cab at around 9:25. They say it'll be there in a minute. Well...that minute turns into 10 and then 15. In the mean time we were trying to flag a cab on the street. NOT ONE CAB in sight. So we call again. They say "one minute". I don't buy this, and I put in my own call. So now we have three calls in. Another 10, 15 minute...nothing. It's now 5 to 10pm and we don't have a cab. I'm cursing folks...What the FUCK is going on...

All was going well for the first 45minutes, then we hit the ROAD BLOCK. Apparently Hwy 1( Trans Canada Hwy) was iced over and they were getting all vehicles off the hwy. This was NOT good news. We drove over to the alternate route, hwy 16. But that to was closed and had been closed for more than a day now. We were stuck an hour outside of Winnipeg at 4:30 am with the only two routes to our next detonation closed.
What do we do ??? What all other Canadians would do in this situation, go to the closest Tim Horton’s...
We get some coffee and turn the radio on to try to get some news on the road conditions. There happens to be one station with a repeating message that for some reason was ambiguous to us. It went something like this "Main hwy temporarily open at such and such intersection for certain vehicles not exceeding a 4 meter maximum"..well what does that mean???

May 2006

Hello Everyone

First I would like to apologize for my Newsletter negligence. I know it's been a while.

We'll start with Europe.
Once again she treated us like Kings. Both Shane and I went this time and we hooked up with our great Friend and guitarist Enrico Crivellaro and drummer Vincenzo Baratin.
We managed to tour five countries which included Italy, Croatia, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. All of which were very warm and receiving.
The shows went extremely well and so did the eating. Let me tell you, the hype on Italian food is not accentuated. You will never eat better than you will in Italy, EVER. If you need confirmation just ask Shane Scott.
Another tour is in the works.

Speaking of tours. No, your eyes were not playing tricks on you. Some people were inquiring about the Winnipeg / Edmonton dates that they saw on the website and I had to confirm that this was not an illusion. Yes, the band drove across the country for two dates. These days when the question is asked "How would you describe the band", I simply say "Crazy". Of course we drove... We laugh at an 80 hour drive for two gigs.
And we quickly discovered why Canada is the second largest country on the planet, because we drove for almost 20 hours and we were still in the same province of Ontario.
The positives, other than being locked in a Van with Shane and Dan.... let me tell you about scary... we did see some of Canada's pride Deer and Moose running through our beautiful and lush Trees, rivers and lakes. There were times that it was simply breath taking and confirming of God's talents as the greatest artist there is. The sun sets and rises were ebullient.
Our first stop was Winnipeg on a Thursday night. We started at 9pm after a 24 hour drive. Number of patrons at show time, 3. Way in the back playing slot machines. Almost made me want to pack it in. More eventually came, most of which were musicians, all of which were very good people and it was great to make their acquaintance.
Next stop, Breakfast TV at 6am in the morning live in front of 1 million viewers . Try this on no sleep in 2 days, again, almost made me pack it in.
We didn't have a drummer to ad to our adversity so we decided to improvise and try something that's probably not been done. Shane played the Kick Drum with one foot while playing the Base and I played the Ride symbol while singing and playing harp.
Live Footage will soon to be available on the Video section of the website.
Regardless, we made it through and had many viewers calling in to inquire about the band.
The rest of the week turned out great and we'll definitely be back.
Next stop
Edmonton.
We didn't have much time between gigs. One day to be exact so we really had to haul #%$ if you know what I mean, especially because Dan wanted to make last call in Edmonton, let's face it WE ALL WANTED TO MAKE LAST CALL.
And we did, 5 Minutes to 2am. We went into a Karaoke bar full of 20 year olds. the place was packed. This was our first indication of the Edmonton mentality, which we fell in love with.
Picture Dan, Shane and myself all wearing hats, dead to the world and sticking out like polar bears in a desert. Not to mention we ordered 6 beer and two shots each. Well,
there wasn't a second glance from anyone in the bar. They just continued on their merry way and invited us in. This was refreshing I must say it was how we felt the whole time. Overwhelmed with good vibe and mentality. If there were two people in the bar there were 3 on the dance floor. They just didn't seem to have a pretence about them.
And the Bar itself. I told Dan when we walked in at 3 am in the morning and it was closed with not a soul in it that I loved the place and would be here all the time. He looked at me and said " David, what are you talking about the place isn't even open" But we all had the same feeling about the place and thankfully we were right. It was a real Low Down, Let your hair down juke joint that gave us every bit of the energy we put out back to us.
It was a great time and we're looking forward to going back, and that will be soon.
I would like to make mention, last but not least. Chuck wasn't able to join us on the tour and we missed him dearly but we were lucky enough to be helped out by two local drummers.
One whom we just met in Winnipeg, Ken McMahan. He was a great drummer and great guy. Thanks Ken
And Matt Walker in Edmonton. Who was a drummer we used when we were first starting off in Toronto in 2000. Matt lived here at the time and we became friends through music and it was great to be reunited after all these years of soul searching and continued soul searching. He's a great guy, drummer and we discovered an exceptionally talented painter. Thanks Matt, keep on keeping on.
The search never ends. Hopefully.
Next time

October 2005

Hello everyone. Just wanted to say a few words about the last few weeks that we had traveling through our great provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It began with a tour out to the great North, Kirkland Lake and Timmons. We've never been to this neck of the woods so we were really looking forward to it. This anticipation was very close to being extinguished when the battery light on my Van came on five hours into the drive. We were now running on the Battery alone and technically should only have about an hours left of driving time before it burns out, but we still had two hours to go. We stopped in Tomogram but everything was closed and no one could help us. A few locals said that our best bet was to get to the Canadian Tire in New Liskard before 6pm, which was about a half hour drive and at the time it wasn't even 5pm yet. It was all looking pretty good, until 10 minutes into the drive, we hit a traffic jam that was not moving an inch. There were even huge logging rigs backing up in the on-coming traffic lane just to turn around. After sitting there without moving an inch for 15 minutes, the local in front of us driving a pick-up truck did a U Turn and was going to head back. I told him we needed to get to New Liskard and he said he knew a back road and to follow him. So we did. Little did we know this back road was a trail that involved Rocks, hills, rivers ect... Sorry I'm abbreviating the story...needless to say it was very stressful and I won't conceal the fact that I was cursing and swearing at him for leading us down this trail when he saw that we were not driving a vehicle suitable for this road. Not to mention we're now in the middle of nowhere with a dying battery and the sun going down fast, no lights or electricity to found, CAA ain't coming out here people... Again... abbreviating all my cursing, swearing...tension...etc...

After almost two hours of this God forsaken trail with the battery minutes away from death, we managed to hit the main Highway, and by passed the accident which was not letting any cars for any reason by, to get us to a local Truck stop that recharged the battery enough to get us to our gig in Kirkland lake. Can anyone guess what I did as soon as I got in the bar... WILD TURKEY.....

Next day: A drive to Timmins that should only take about and hour and a half ended up taking 6 hours. There was no one in town to helps us with the Alternator so we tried to drive on the battery to Timmins. Got half way, battery stopped taking a charge. This is when our Angels came into the picture. I had the cell # of someone that wanted us (the band) to be a surprise at a birthday party. I was simply calling to say that it didn't look like we can make it because our van broke down and we have to get a tow. Well, they ended up being our tow. Again not to abbreviate any important details, but these people bent over backwards to help us. They ran around to pick us up an alternator which ended up being integral, then they drove out and towed us with their own pick up. Almost one hour with a rope. They set us up at the local Canadian tire, then brought us back to the Birthday Party where we had those most incredible meal. Thank you.. Michael, Jocelyn, Richard, Lynn.. tout le monde See you soon. We will never forget your big hearts.

Off to Quebec: Well, what can I say. We always love playing in Quebec and this was no different. Great venues and great people! The thing about Quebec is, they make the show into an event. People come to listen to the music as well as to have a good time. It was our first time in Beauport and Magog and we loved them both. Hope to see you guys again soon.

Off to Europe: Until then. I would like to thank everyone, especially those that have seen us more than once. You're the main reason we can do this for a living and we appreciate your support.

Hello friends

Sorry to forget about my "News" section but it's been very hectic.

I just got back from playing in Mexico and that was a great way to start off the year 2005. Great people, great weather and great vibe in Puerto Escondido. If you ever get the chance go to Puerto Escondido, stay at my new found brother Paul's place, The Buena Vista Hotel. He's a great man and quickly turning into a great drummer.

Also in 2004 I had the extreme pleasure of working with Finis Tasby, Enrico Crivellaro and the amazing Mel Brown, under Andrew Galloway's Electro-fi records. It was truly an honor and unforgettable experience to work with the highest caliber Blues musicians and people. The shear soul to soul connection between Mel and Finis was as Mr. Galloway's label indicates "Electric".

I believe the CD will be coming out this Spring. Last but not least, I'll be embarking on another tour through Europe and this time I'll be going with my "brother" Shane Scott on bass. We'll be joining up with Enrico Crivellaro on guitar and Vincezo Batarin on drums. We have a full schedule and are playing every night from the 10th to the 22nd of March. Promise I wont take a year to write in here again.

For now, I want to thank all of you for your support in the year 2004.

Until next time

Stay Bluesified

Yours,

David Rotundo

January 2004

Hey Friends

Sorry for the long pause but needless to say things have been somewhat hectic. Just a quick few words and recap of the last 8 or 9 months. Much has happened over the past little while and although I may miss some details, I'll try to give you the highlights.

We had a great Summer Festival season with many exciting gigs including opening up for Elvis Costello on the mainstage at the Ottawa Blues Festival. We got a chance to meet Elvis and his band backstage and they were all great, humble and level headed people. It was truly a memorable experience.

Other great dates included the Party Gras festival, Beaches festival, the new and very promising Toronto Star Blues Festival. Not to mention the one and only and always a blast, North Bay Blues festival with my close friends Sab, Waxie and Brent, and of course Dan Lindsey of 100 Georges.

September began with another great time at the Port Credit Southside Shuffle. Thanks to Chuck Jackson, John and Niki (Roc'n Doc's) and every one at the Shuffle for a great time.

It was also a great pleasure to go out to the other beautiful parts of Canada, Carleton Quebec (Maximum Blues fest) and Fredericton, New Brunswick for the Harvest festival.

In December, I had the privilege of touring parts of Europe with my good friend, Enrico Crivellaro. Enrico worked me like a mule. It was "pay back" for all the shows he's done with me in Canada.

Enrico treated me like a brother. We played almost ever night leaving only one day to see the sights around Venice, which Enrico said "is good for the soul", and it was.

We started the tour in the region of Abruzzi, Italy, only miles from my Fathers home town and birth place. Needless to say, this was very special to me. The food, the people and the long drives between performances were all great. Special thanks to Vincenzo and Gigi, drums and bass, drivers and great people.

Finally, the Maple Blues Awards, was once again a great evening fun and great music. Congratulations to all the Nominees and Recipients, you all deserve it. A special congratulations to our friend and bassist, Shane Scott for winning the "bassist of the year" award. It was a very special evening and it was great to be in a room with such talents, good people and most of all, such BLUES LOVERS.

Talk soon everyone.

Yours

David

Hey all you shining lights.

It's been a great March for me and the band. Again, it was a pleasure to be able to hook up with the one and only Enrico Crivellaro. For those of you who caught him in action. you may have already deduced that he's a great blues gift. I would like to add that he is also a great person and it was an honor to share the stage with him. I'm also very proud to have him on my next CD which should be out in June.

I know I'm cheating just a little to mention the first few days of April in my March summation but I can't resist.

I also had the pleasure of listening to and playing with the fabulous Edgar Winter at Jeff Healey's. Jeff has been very supportive of me and surprisingly asked me to the stage to do a number with Edgar and the band. They were a thrill to play with and I'd again like to add that not only was Edgar sounding exceptionally good but he too, was also a very nice person to hang out with.

Last but not least. I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Odetta on Sat. night. For those of you who don't know who she is or haven't heard of her before, please do yourself a favor and treat yourselves to her spirit and talent. She's a 72 year old folk blues legend with the vitality and defiance of a 20 year old. Very inspiring and compelling, hence " hey all you shining lights" "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine........

See you soon

January 2003

Hello friends and Blues lovers.

I hope we all had a happy and prosperous 2002 and the same for 2003.

We look forward to seeing you out at the blues shows and appreciate your listening support. We had a very enjoyable year of 2002. There were many highlights for the Blue Canadians and myself. The guys in the band are all very humble and modest so I won't get into the details, but we greatly appreciate your support and recognition.

Please continue to let the blues get you through the day with a smile and don't forget to bring that smile and your dancing shoes to the next show.

Thanks again and all the best

Sincerely David

Please stay tuned for an up coming CD. More details soon.

October 2002

October was a very good month for me in particular. It began with guesting at Healey's and getting a chance to play with Jeff himself, as well as a great group of backing musicians. Al Webster, drummer from the Colin James Band. Terry Wilkins, bass player from the Swing Gang and former Big Sugar band mates. Pat Rush, guitarist who's toured extensively for and played with many greats including Muddy Water's, James Cotton and Johnny Winter. Of course my partner in crime Julian Fauth and Host Jerome Godboo whom I always have fun with when ever we get a chance to jam together.

I also got the chance to play on Jack de Keyzer's tour through Quebec. Starting at the Legendary and always a party Cafe Campus and ending the tour at the Thorold Blues fest just outside of St. Catherine's.

Me and the Band got to end off the month playing at Roc'n Doc's for the Southside Shuffle party which was a great time put on for the organizers of the fest. Also contributing to the festivities and laughs that night was a well documented and very entertaining video of the 3 day fest put together and produced by Mako Funasaka from Talking Blues. Incidentally, Mako's show we be airing on Bravo starting Nov.12 at 7:30 pm for a six series episode, one of which will have a video featuring me and the Blue Canadians. And of course the month ended on a very pleasurable note when we discovered that we were nominated as the best new blues artist of the year and I was nominated best Harmonica Player of the year. To this we sincerely send out our thanks and appreciation to all our supporters and fans. Thanks again and see you in November

Little White Wolf

September 2002

Hey Everyone. Sept. was another great month for the band and the blues. It started out with a very successful Southside Shuffle Blues Festival in Port Credit. It was a very busy weekend for us and hopefully we made some new blues fans out of the streaming ebb and flow of people and families enjoying the sun and music. It was also great to see some of the other bands, namely playing with Jack deKeyzer, Chuck Jackson and the Downchild Blues Band, Fathead, Tortoise Blue and Dave Glover, JW Jones and the many more.

It was also a pleasure to play and participate in the New Generation of the Blues with Dylan Wickens, Little Bobby, Flip, Harpo and Tom Bona at Blues on Bellair. This will be an annual event so please come out and support the new blues players next year.

Sincerely, David

August 2002

Without a doubt, the highlight of the month was the time spent with Enrico Crivellaro. David met Enrico in Chicago a number of years back when they were both staying at a Hostel. Since that moment when they found out that they were both interested in the blues, they have been great friends. Enrico has spent time in both Boston and Los Angeles (where he played with the Janiva Magness and James Harmon to name but a few) establishing himself as one of the top guitarists out there. He currently resides in Italy but spends most of his time on the road. Enrico will be recording his first album in the next few months.

David and Enrico along with the Blue Canadians opened up for Hiram Bullock at Healey's on August 21st. Right after that, Enrico and David made their way up to North Bay to join Sab to perform a number of shows at the North Bay Blues Festival.

It's been a great summer for David and the band and as they say, it's gone by way too quickly. Pete and Shane are putting the finishing touches to their album and they have just completed work on a blues jam CD which will be available in the beginning of September. Julian just returned from a tour in Cuba and has released his first solo CD which features David, Paul Reddick (the Sidemen), Bob Mover and Madagascar Slim.

July 2002

July began with the Toronto Harbourfront Blues Festival and a live recording for the CBC Saturday Night Blues Show. This opportunity was made possible through the TBS New Talent Search Contest. The shows went off well and the band was thrilled at the prospects of being featured on a future Saturday Night Blues show.

In the middle of July, David joined Jack de Keyzer for a few festival dates including the Mont Tremblanc Blues Festival and the London Blues Festival. Speaking of festivals, David and the Blue Canadians had the great privilege of participating in the Toronto International Beaches Jazz Festival's Street Festival where they played to...many, many, many, many people.

The month ended with a date at the Silver Dollar Room on the same night that James Cotton was playing the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern. It's strange to think that David got into this blues thing because of James Cotton and now they were playing in town on the same night. Luckily for one of them, the other one didn't monopolize all of the blues fans in the city - and they both had a great night.

Oh yes, for anyone interested, you can now purchase a David Rotundo T-Shirt at his shows or by emailing him.

June 2002

As the summer approaches, the schedule appears to be filling up nicely. The band played at RD's on Duncan Street at the beginning of the month.

While Shane and Pete continue work on their CD, David has also been busy playing at a number of festivals. This month, David and the band spent a weekend in North Bay for a series of shows.

For David, one of the highlights of the month was playing with Jack de Keyzer at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Jack's band played two shows - one outdoors in front of close to 20,000 people and the other one at the Spectrum in front of another 2,000 people. Both shows were well received by the audience and both David and Jack look forward to returning to Montreal soon.

May 2002

The highlight of the month occurred on the final day of May - technically, the first day of June - when David and the Blue Canadians won first place at the TBS Talent Search Contest. The band was chosen as one of the six finalists along with Blues Parlour, Pappy Johns Band, Deep Dish Deluxe, The Bebop Cowboys, and the Odyssey Blues Band.

The First Place award includes a NXNE showcase in June and a performance during the Labatt Blue's Festival at Harbourfront on July 6 which will be recorded for a national broadcast on CBC Radio's Saturday Night Blues. Needless to say, this is quite an honour for the band.

David and Julian have received some coverage in the media as a result of their successful tour of Russia. This included a piece on CITY-TV's CityPulse as well as an article written by Al Kircardy for the Peterborough Examiner. As soon as it is available, we will post some images and thoughts from the two weeks in Russia.

Pete and Shane are putting the final touches on their new music project but the release date has not been finalized at this point in time.

April 2002

Pete and Shane are continuing their work on their upcoming CD. All is going well.

David and Julian have spent the last two weeks of the month in Volgograd and Moscow. Thoughts and images of the Tour of Russia will be added to this web site shortly.

March 2002

This was another busy month for David and the band. David played a couple of shows in Hearst with the Hurting Blues Band and recorded a few tracks as a special guest with the band for their upcoming album. In addition to this, David participated in the Toronto Blues Society Harmonica Workshop hosted by Al Lerman with Sugar Ray Norcia, Roly Platt, and Paul Reddick. That evening, David not only enjoyed one of his favourite singer/harp players, Sugar Ray Norcia perform at the Silver Dollar Room, he was even invited up to play on stage with Sugar Ray and the Bluetones for a couple of numbers. Needless to say, this was quite an honour for David. David and Peter made a return engagement to the Poor Folk's Deli in Brantford at the end of the month.

Peter and Shane have been busy continuing their work on their new CD. The bed tracks are almost complete and they are both very pleased with the progress of this project. They are also working on another CD project that all you musicians will be interested in tentatively called the Ultimate Blues Jam CD. This CD is for guitar and harp players who want to practice their instruments at home with a great rhythm section on your CD player. For more information, go to http://www.peteschmidt.com.

As you probably already, David and Julian will be going to Volgograd and Moscow, for an 18 show Russian tour. The word we have received is that most, if not all of the date have already sold out. Be sure to come to L'ArtŽs on Dundas Street West on Sunday, April 7th for a going away party for David and Julian. Please see the gig schedule for more details.

February 2002

David and Julian are putting the final plans together for their two week tour of Russia, which will take place in April. The schedule has been revised and they will not be stopping in St. Petersburg this time around but it looks like they will be kept quite busy performing in Volgograd and Moscow.

Julian is completing the final mix on his solo CD and Pete and Shane are still working hard in the studio with their CD project. David will be going into the studio this month as a special guest on the Hurting Blues Band CD.

Pete was one of the five guitarists that was featured at the TBS Guitar Workshop held at Healey's on February 23rd. Speaking of TBS workshops, David will be one of the participants at the TBS Harmonica workshop on Saturday, March 23rd at the Red Devil.

We should mention that "Blowin' For Broke" was one of the five nominees for the Canadian Indies Awards "Best Blues Album" category. Congratulations to Harry Manx who won the award and to all of the other nominees, Rita Chiarelli, Paul Reddick + the Sideman and Lester Quitzau.

January, 2002

David and the band played at Boomerz in London with Little Bobby this month. In addition to this, David travelled up north to Moosenee with Sab's band on the weekend of January 19th. (It was -48 degrees when they arrived in Cochran to catch the train.) Speaking of up north, David will be heading up to Hearst, Ontario to play and record with the Hurting Blues Band in March.

Julian is finishing up his solo album and Peter and Shane have started work on a new studio project. This project will feature a number of special guests including of course, David and Julian. More details on the project in the weeks to come.

Also...David and Julian are currently negotiating a series of shows in Russia including dates in Moscow and St. Petersberg in April. As soon as details are finalized, we will let you know.

Finally, we'd like to thank everyone who voted for David and the Blue Canadians in the Maple Blues Awards "Best New Artist" category. Congratulations to Big Mark and the Blues Express and all of the other nominees, Isaac & Blewett, JW-Jones Blues Band, and Ronnie Douglas Blues Band.

December, 2001

David Rotundo & the Blue Canadians have received a nomination for the Maple Blues Awards in the "New Artist of the Year" category. The band is truly honoured to have been recognized by the panel of blues radio personalities and music journalists across Canada.

For more information on the Maple Blues Awards, please go to the Toronto Blues Society web site or click on Maple Blues Awards logo above.

If you are not a member of one of the participating Blues Societies, you can obtain an official ballot by emailing info@torontobluessociety.com to receive a ballot. Important: Include your name and full mailing address (snail mail) within your email.