Roots, blues festival revs up
Fourteen acts have been announced for the 20th annual Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival, Aug. 17 to Aug. 19.
They include:
• Alex Cuba (alexcuba.com), a singer-songwriter from Artemisa, Cuba who now lives in Smithers.
• Beaton Sisters (dawnandmargie.com), Celtic musicians who have performed around the world.
• Cuff the Duke (cufftheduke.ca), an alt-country band that just released its fifth recording, Morning Comes.
• Declan O’Donovan (sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=332530&name=music), an alternative roots and blues musician from the Yukon. He’s been compared to Leon Russell, Randy Newman and Tom Waits.
• Delhi 2 Dublin (delhi2dublin.com), a genre-defying band that describes its 2010 release, Planet Electric, as “the buzz of the world that they are plugging into some large socket to electrify the people, to charge up their energy.”
• Five Alarm Funk (fivealarmfunk.com), a horn- and percussion-driven band that has performed throughout North America.
• Hazmat Modine (hazmatmodine.com), a band that draws its inspiration from the early bluyes rhrough to New Orleans R&B with some Jamaican thrown into the mix. The band is fronted by two harmonicas and includes tuba, guitar, percussion, claviola and Hawaiian steel guitar.
• Hollerado (hollerado.com), a Juno Award-nominated independent rock band.
• James ‘Super Chikan’ Johnson and the Fighting Cocks (superchikan.com), an award-winning Delta blues musician who, after spending a lifetime singing, finally recorded his first album in 1997 and has been winning awards ever since.
• Jayme Stone (jaymestone.com), a two-time Juno-winning banjoist whose latest album, Room of Wonders, explores music from Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, Brazil, Italy and North America.
• Markus James and the Wassonrai (firenzerecords.com). James, a roots-and-blues singer, joins with four West African performers to create a sound that features the thundering percussion of West Africa with Mississippi-style guitar riffs.
• Raleigh (sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=291575), which brings together Calgary-based musicians Brock Geiger (The Dudes & Dojo Workhorse), Matt Doherty (oAxis of Conversation and This City Defects) and Clea Anais (Consonant C and Dojo Workhorse) for some progressive folk.
• Robert Randolph and the Family Band (robertrandolph.net), a multicultural funk and soul group that recently released We Walk The Road. The band brings together gospel, blues and rock and draws inspirations from as far back as the 1920s to as recent as today.
• Shred Kelly (shredkelly.com), a gathering of friends from Fernie who are known for mixing clawhammer banjo riffs with a ghostly mandolin, high-voltage guitars, fierce drums and hauntingly sweet harmonies.
For more information on the festival and ordering tickets, go here.
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