It's a Wrap!

It's a wrap. Nine Canadian provinces. Coast to Coast. Trees and rock. Flatlands. Mountains. Summer. Fall. Winter. Places big, small, grand and humble. The world's biggest, little blues tour.

Myself, and Albert Frost. Twenty thousand km in the Big Lincoln. We brought the Blues to places big and small, beautiful and strange. Nearly sixty shows. Tour like this don't just happen. It takes a big community of supporters to foster a national tour. I am very grateful to all of my friends up and down the line- we could not do this without you. No grants, no agents, no managers, no record labels. Five guitars. A lifetime of experience. A network of fabulous blues societies across Canada. The cool venues and cool folks across nine provinces made this tour as successful as it was.

Many of Canada's top blues musicians joined us for shows along the way. Morgan Davis made Bearly's House of Blues into a classic, trio show. Yeah, you should of been there. 

The godfather of the east coast scene, Joe Murphy- always welcome on our stage.

I'd forgotten the left leaning blues of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

One of the last of the big, bad old blues joints. Everybody played here. We stood where Muddy stood. Soon, this place will be gone, and perhaps condos will overflow onto these hard streets.

Big Dave McLean will go on to be Maple nominated "Acoustic Act of the Year." Congrats, Dave. Maple nominations are generally announced fifty to sixty shows into my annual, nine province Canadian tour schedule. It's a parallel universe, I'm afraid- and the blues business is now quite disconnected from my world of small town Legion Halls, small town stories, gas stations and truck stops. It would be hard to add more dates, and hard to miss the ones the Tour visits every year. It's all about the live music, the living blues, the living story, the shared journey, the adventure. Still, it would be nice to get a little hunk of blue plastic before I die. Better before, for sure.

In Saskatchewan, we detoured to lay a wreath on behalf of South African Women's Hockey. I was pleased to be able to do this for them, but this was surely one of the most emotional moments of our journey. Canada, for all it's size, is a small place when you leave the big cities behind. Humboldt Strong.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley attended our closing, Calgary show at the Blues Can. We had an interesting conversation that had little to do with politics, and much to do with life. I did use the opportunity to propose stable funding for Canada's favourite radio station, CKUA!

 

 

Cool stuff. High desert.

 

That's All Folks!

Doc MacLean returns to South Africa in January 2019 for "Spook'n Diesel," his 3rd, solo SA tour.

Albert Frost returns to Canada for solo shows, August-September, 2019.