October

From the Rochester International Jazz Festival

Kevin Breit (pronounced: bright) was born in the small Northern Ontario hamlet of McKerrow (pronounced:very small). He is the youngest of seven children born to musical parents. Breit, self-taught, grew up listening and loving the music of the Beatles, Bill Monroe, Stevie Wonder, Little Feat, Johnny Winter, Todd Rundgren, Aretha Franklin, Rare Earth, Miles Davis, Rashaan Roland Kirk, Hank Williams, and many others.

At age 17,he moved to Toronto to follow his dream of being a musician. After a period of re-adjustment, Kevin began working in and out of studios and concert settings. He has recorded with the likes of Cassandra Wilson (grammy award winning, New Moon Daughter and her follow-up Traveling Miles); k.d lang (Drag); Holly Cole (Temptation, It Happened one Night and Dark Dear Heart); Janis Ian (Hunger); Dal Bello (She and Whore) as well as new releases from Patti Scialfa, Marc Jordan, Quartette, Natalie McMaster, Barra MacNeills, Molly Johnson, Miller Stain Limit, Shelby Starner, Jeb Loy Nichols, Sass Jordan, Wendy Lands, Carlos del Junco, to name a few.

Kevin is currently in Norah Jones' "Handsome Band" and his song "Humble Me" is featured on her new album Feels Like Home.

Kevin's new recording John & the Sisters, featuring the funky Sisters Euclid band and blues-belter John Dickie, is coming out on NorthernBlues Music in April 2004. “an adventurous and oftentimes unpredictable player possessing a seemingly inexhaustible storehouse of ideas at his fingertips” -Gary Tate Blues On Stage

November

From the website:

Let's get this straight right off: They don't make musicians like AMOS GARRETT any more. He may not be in the public eye like, say, Stevie Wonder or Bonnie Raitt or Maria Muldaur (and he's recorded with all of 'em, and close to 200 more). He's not a high-energy performer with a lot of flash. Instead, he substitutes a wicked dry sense of humour and understated guitar licks that sound simple but need 40 years of hard work to pull off with the class that he always delivers. He likes to stay close to home (in Turner Valley, Alberta) but he tours in unlikely places like France and Japan and Scotland. He's known for his electric guitar work - but his latest album is entirely acoustic.

December

The boys are back in town! Well, they really didn't go anywhere but the line just came to me. How about "There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight."?

Come out and ring in the 2007 with Greenbank's favourite band.  

January

From the Mr. Rick website:

Mr. Rick was born in Detroit, Michigan in the 1950's. As a young fella he loved listening to the Blues, Country, and Gospel music he heard on his transistor radio.

Mr. Rick Sr., a contract lawman took a job in the deep South as a temporary sheriff. As fate would have it, Mr. Rick Sr. had the great, Reverend Napolean Rice in jail for a minor infraction.

The Reverend couldn't make his bail, so Mr. Rick Sr. had the Reverend teach all of his guitar tricks and secrets to his son Mr. Rick. It wasn't very long before Mr. Rick was developing a reputation of his own. On his way home to Michigan, Mr. Rick met Luther Wheatstraw in Beebee Town, Iowa. Luther was working his family's hog farm, and playing guitar nights in town. The two of them did some hoboing and pickin' together, but sadly they drifted apart.

Some years later, and fortunately for us, both men met back up in Canada. The two men a little older and a little wiser had settled in Toronto, and decided to form Mr. Rick & the Biscuits. Mr. Rick still loving his radio, and Luther still loving his pigs.

February

Marigold bios:

CAITLIN HANFORD is originally from Bainbridge Island, Washington. She immigrated to Canada, after graduating from McGill University, to embark on a music career with her husband, Chris Whiteley. Caitlin’s repertoire includes outstanding original songs and many undiscovered "gems". Her voice has a pure, Appalachian quality, perfectly suited to the high, lonesome sound of traditional country and bluegrass. She is also one quarter of the wonderful vocal group, Quartette.

GWEN SWICK can write a lyric that will sink into your heart like a tattoo. Her music is a shifting palette of folk, jazz, country and blues, and she sings with a mesmerizing voice that evokes a sense of wonder. Born in Winnipeg, she has lived in many cities and on military bases across the country. At York University, she studied viola da gamba and East Indian singing. She performs with her own group and has also been a member of the folk group Tamarack and, more recently, Quartette.

SUZIE VINNICK is a singer, songwriter and musician who was awarded the 2003 Canadian Maple Blues Female Vocalist of the Year. A Saskatoon native living in Toronto, Suzie is the owner of a gorgeous, powerful voice and performs with a sweet mixture of engaging candidness and unparalleled musicianship. Her music is roots-based branching out into blues, folk and pop. She performs as a solo act, and is also a member of the groups Betty & the Bobs and the pop trio, Vinnick Sheppard Harte (VSH).

SUZIE, GWEN and CAITLIN share a love of good songs, beautiful harmonies and great grooves. In The Marigolds they are accompanied by the versatile drummer/percussionist Randall Coryell. As solo artists and with their other groups, each member of The Marigolds has performed in concert from coast to coast, at folk festivals, on radio and television. As well, they each have solo recordings.

March

From Oliver's web site:

Oliver Schroer is a unique fiddler/composer who lives at the cutting edge. His musical explorations have taken him far beyond his traditional Canadian roots into the realms of jazz, Scandinavian, Balkan, and Asian music. But he has gone much farther. He has melded those elements into a unique and recognizable style of his own: lyrical, fractal, a continuously twisting thread. Once his music has been heard, it's hard to mistake it for anyone else's.

He has performed across North America and Europe with a wide variety of top acts in venues ranging from intimate clubs to New York’s Lincoln Center. He has been a featured guest on virtually every leading Canadian national radio show, and has been the subject of numerous special broadcasts.

Schroer's playing appears on over 100 albums of new traditional, acoustic, and popular music. He has recorded with American songwriting legends Jimmy Webb and Barry Mann, Canadian singers James Keelaghan, Loreena McKennitt and Sylvia Tyson, acoustic guitar mavens Jesse Cook and Don Ross, East Coast rockers Great Big Sea, West Coast rockers Spirit of the West, members of Quebec powerhouse La Bottine Souriante, Finnish accordionist Maria Kalaneimi , and World percussionists Trichy Sankaran and Bob Becker, to name but a few.

Flexibility is Schroer’s hallmark. Along the path, he has performed with such diverse acts as Linda Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir, Marc Jordan, Liu Fang, Jorane, George Fox, Stephen Fearing, Hoven Droven, Greg Brown, Glen Velez, Valdy, Tanya Tagaq, Teresa Doyle, Eileen McGann, and CBC's Stewart McLean/Vinyl Cafe Orchestra.

Schroer has composed over 1,000 pieces and has recorded eight CDs of his own compositions. Oliver has also produced eleven albums for the Somerset label, two of which have gone Gold. Of the roughly thirty albums Oliver has produced, eight have been nominated for a Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of a Grammy). He has also done soundtrack work. Schroer’s playing can be heard on the award winning television series Angels in America and on Lemony Snickett, a Series of Unfortunate Events.

Oliver Schroer is currently promoting his new CD - Camino, a live recording from his 1,000km walk along the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain.

April

From Rick's web site:

The Rick Fines Trio

Rick Fines has been out on the road playing music for 20 years now. At 41, he is a veteran of the folk and blues circuits in North America. He won the MapleBlues Award for Acoustic Act Of The Year twice (98, 99) and was nominated three times for the MapleBlues SOCAN Songwriter of the Year award. His work with Jackson Delta (for 15 years) brought recognition from both the Juno and the Handy Awards. He has played for legendary blues piano player Pinetop Perkins, songstress Colleen Peterson, folk icon Penny Lang and many others. He has toured from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, from B.C. to Boston, bringing his understanding of blues, finger-style and bottleneck guitar. But it is Fines’ songwriting and his expressive voice that draws most critical acclaim.

With Rob Phillips on piano and vocals and Richard Simpkins on upright bass and vocals, Fines has a trio that moves easily through his own laid-back brand of blues, stompin’ shuffles and jazz-inflected swing. And when the trio is playing Fines’ original songs there’s no doubt that this is how they were intended to be heard. These men have known each other for many years and are good friends as well as musical partners.

Rob Phillips grew up in the same neighbourhood as Fines and attended the same primary school. Starting at an early age Phillips studied classical piano, then at age 10 he discovered Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson - the Kansas City Boogie Woogie masters. Phillips went on to attend the music program at University of Alabama, and studied in his native Peterborough under jazz pianist Brian Browne. He kept busy the whole time playing in jazz trios and R&B bands.

Richard Simpkins has worked steadily as a bass player since he was 14, and has taken vocal training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He has played almost every style of music over the years, both in the studio and on the road. In 1985 Simpkins began studying the upright bass and concentrated his efforts on jazz. He has been working with Fines on and off since1986 and continues to play in two jazz trios as well.

May 12, 2007

From the Kobo Town web site

A pan-Caribbean sound where the lyricism and melodies of calypso meet the heavy bass grooves of dub and reggae.

Merging calypso, roots reggae, acoustic performance, dub studio techniques and Trinidadian/Jamaican cultures, Kobo Town is a unique, stylistic, transnational composite of rhythm, poetry and activist journalism.
Brent Hagerman, Exclaim!

Though the band's sound is best described as pan-Caribbean, its inspiration and subject matter have firm roots in the history of Gonsalves's native land, of whose turbulent history he speaks with poetic specificity and force.
Jon Sobel, Blogcritics