Until Friday night, everything I knew about Habib Koité could have been summed up in three words: “Legendary African guitarist.” All I’d ever known of West African music was the roots of the blues in the work of Ali Farke Toure, and I suppose I had a notion that Koité came from the same place, [...]
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So we have this new space in downtown Toronto – well, new to us, it is a shared space with Borealis Records, and we have huge plans for it. We are currently adorning the office with various roots artifacts, records, instruments, blankets, and of course, what is a Canadian roots-music space without a hammock? Eh? [...]
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Hi folks, We haven’t “officially” relaunched RootsMusic.ca yet, but obviously our new site is up and looking great! I thought I’d take this opportunity to update our audience on some of our successes to date: Our Twitter feed is at nearly a thousand followers, 3/4 of them Canadian We have almost 3000 Facebook fans and [...]
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Riverboat Coffee House Legends We continue our series with Jane Harbury, or as we like to call her, Riverboat Jane. Quite accidentally, she began working as a dishwasher at the famous Riverboat Coffee House in Yorkville (Toronto) in the late 60’s, and ended up managing the club by the time she left in 1974. In this second [...]
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What a great concert we enjoyed last night! James Keelaghan, with David Woodhead, and opener Juanita Wilkins thoroughly entertained the two-hundred or so gathered at Kitchener’s Registry Theatre Saturday night. And it was a privilege to share the show with a total of 231 unique-visitors to this site, including visits from Australia, Massachusetts, BC, California, North [...]
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It gives us great pleasure to present Juno Award winning singer-songwriter James Keelaghan, live from Kitchener, Ontario’s Registry Theatre, Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 8:00 PM. James is joined by the multi-talented David Woodhead. Opening the show is special guest, Juanita Wilkins. As you can see by their bios below, these are a pair of remarkable [...]
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Blues, Brews & BBQ Bars. Clubs. Restaurants. Theatres. Stadiums. Festivals. Run by thousands of mostly unknown, starry-eyed, passionate music lovers who get up every morning with one thing on their minds: the gig. People like Ken McGarrie and Kerry Knoll – the owners of Highway 61, a critically-acclaimed Southern BBQ located in North Toronto, far [...]
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It was 13 degrees today in the Garden City of St. Catharines, Ontario. What better day to review Andrew Queen’s 2010 campfire CD, Too Tall? “Please file under children’s music,” reads the label, but this album qualifies as fantastic family fare—definitely on the folk spectrum, but with story telling to evoke laughter not tears. We [...]
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Montréal’s Carole Facal, aka Caracol, recently paid her first visit to Hugh’s Room, Toronto, sharing a billing with fellow Québecoise Roxanne Potvin. Many world-music lovers will recognize the name Caracol, half of DobaCaracol, a six-piece band that enjoyed tremendous success until it put itself on ice in 2008. DobaCaracol sold over 100,000 units of their [...]
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Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, is back for another year, and is slowly revealing its regular plethora of goodies to the public via a series of press conferences and news releases. One such event took place on Tuesday, March 9, and featured announcements around Luminato’s music lineup. The centrepiece is a concert on [...]
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