On their way to The Hornby Island Blues Workshop, Cécile Doo-Kingué, Tim Williams, Paul Pigat, and Michael Jerome Browne stopped into St. James Hall on a warm and pleasant Friday evening, offering a grand selection of blues and roots music to an enthusiastic crowd. The place was packed.
Like a traditional folk workshop, they cycled from one artist to the next, each playing acoustic guitar and offering originals and interpretations, often bringing in the others for solo and rhythm support. It was a night of wonderful music, relaxed, humorous, and full of spontaneity and great talent.
Paul Pigat
Paul Pigat is likely best known for leading Cousin Harley, an intense rockabilly trio that branches out into blues and country music, although his country outlet is best heard with Boxcar Campfire. He is incredibly versatile, an impressive finger stylist, jazz performer and singer. Seeing him in any style incarnation is always a worthy and entertaining event.
Cécile Doo-Kingué
Cécile Doo-Kingué was born and grew up in New York. She is a citizen of the world now living in Montreal. An impressive guitar player and singer, her sound incorporates Afro-roots, blues and soul influences. She has several albums out, including a trilogy that began with Anybody Listening pt. 1 (20150 and was followed the next year by Anybody Listening pt. 2. She has earned several Maple Blues awards. Her songs are powerful, some are strongly political and personal, her lyrics are vivid and pointed. And on this occasion, her versatile guitar playing was on display along with her warmth and humour.
Tim Williams
Tim Williams, American born, came to Canada in 1970 after several years taking in the California music scene of the mid-1960s. Blues, folk, roots, rock, Hawaiian, and Mexican music are all part of his repertoire. He has a great knowledge of the blues and its history, the different styles from the Delta to Chicago and everywhere in between. More importantly, he demonstrates this deep history with his various guitar blues styles that go back to those early years. His latest album is Corazones Y Murrallas.
Michael Jerome Brown
Michael Jerome Browne is one of Canada’s most significant blues and roots artists on the scene today. He has been nominated and won several folk and blues awards. He is a “multi-instrumentalist, a songwriter, and a living encyclopedia of American Roots music,” as his website states. Browne performed on tour as a one-man band and was a singer and guitarist in the Stephen Barry Band. He has worked extensively with Eric Bibb, co-producing and performing on the 2017 Grammy nominated Migration Blues.