The Maple Blues Band has stepped down as the Maple Blues Awards’ ‘house band’
Emily Burgess on stage at the Maple Blues Awards. Photos by David Hynes and Paul Corby.The Maple Blues Band has announced that after 24 years, they will not be returning to their position as host band for the 2024 Maple Blues Awards.
They gave their notice to the MBA planning committee at the awards recap meeting on Feb.16. The departure marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter for the big band, which was formed two decades ago to provide the musical landscape for the popular national awards program.
Their new release, Let’s Go, on Cordova Bay Records will need their full commitment towards increasing their performance schedule with festival shows and theatre concerts. It’s been a great run that has provided band leader/musical director, Gary Kendall with the valuable opportunity of forming a large group with a platform for creating original pieces of instrumental music. Those compositions have become the basis for the band’s live show and an exciting vision for the future.
Special thanks go out to The Toronto Blues Society and President Derek Andrews for guiding The Maple Blues Band through the last two decades and to Jocelyn Greenwood, President of Cordova Bay Records for opening the door to the band’s future.
The Maple Blues Awards made it possible for The Maple Blues Band to accompany and perform with hundreds of Canadian blues musicians, some of the best in the country and the world. That privilege will be expanded upon in their next chapter.
