Multi-award winning blues musician, Harpdog Brown, will be playing in Trapper's Pub on Friday. “I've never played in Athabasca.
Multi-award winning blues musician, Harpdog Brown, will be playing in Trapper's Pub on Friday.
“I've never played in Athabasca. Imagine this, 35 years doing this around Canada and some parts of America and what not, and I kind of start running out of new places to play. It's exciting to have a new place and to be invited, ” Brown said.
He hopes that his time in the Athabasca will “plant a seed. ”
“In which case, every time we come through these parts, twice a year we'll make sure we get through the Athabasca territory and do at least one show, ” he said.
The Vancouver native will be in town during the last leg of his 21-day tour of Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of BC with his new guitarist, Jordan Edmonds. They hire rhythm sections, drums and bass guitar, where they need to.
The duo recently released an album called “What It Is, ” which reviewers call his best work yet. It's been ranked in the top four on the Canadian Radio Roots Music Charts in the last few months and some of the singles from the album have been in the top 30 every week on Roots Music Radio.
“I've kind of relaunched my career. Jordan Edmonds came into my life at the right time. The album was laid out at the right time. I feel more qualified than I ever was, ” explained Brown.
“And I do feel like I'm a better singer than back then and I'm a more imaginative harp player than I was back then. ”
Which may be saying something as Brown was nominated for a Juno Award in 1995 for Best Blues/Gospel Album and was the only Canadian to win a Muddy Award from the Cascade Blues Association in Portland.
Although he's been touring and making music for 35 years, Brown has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. He's never liked the idea of staying in one place and “punching in the clock. ”
“I'm never bored. It gets frustrating. It gets downright ornery sometimes, but it's never boring. It's like one of those famous sayings, ‘A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at the office,' ” he added.
It also helps that he loves the blues.
“We're really performing the songs that matter to us. We're not doing songs that are typically hits that the people are going to love. We're against those odds and we're OK with that, because it's not about that, ” he said.
“It's about expressing the odyssey, the truth of life and that's what blues is, really; it's somebody recording life as they see it. Good, bad and ugly. ”
