LIVE MUSIC: ARTIST LINEUP FOR WINTERFOLK 2010

JULIAN FAUTH

Winner of the 2009 Juno Award for Best Blues Album (Ramblin’ Son), and nominee for numerous Maple Blues Awards, Julian Fauth is a soulful singer-songwriter and barrelhouse piano player working in the tradition of pre-war acoustic blues. Fauth began listening to blues and fooling around on the piano as a child. After coming to Toronto in 1996, he began jamming in Kensington Market bars, which led to a busy career on the Toronto blues scene today. He has played in Russia, Cuba, Germany, the USA and various parts of Canada, meeting and playing with the best in the business such as the late Mel Brown, his friend and mentor, but you can still catch him belting it out at local Toronto watering holes. He is currently working on a new CD to be released by Electro-Fi.

DANNY MARKS

Toronto Blues Society’s Blues With A Feeling Award for lifetime achievement in 2007 had Danny's name on it. A longtime player and supporter of blues music, he is a unique performer and blues/roots music officionado if ever there was one. If there’s a popular song from 1900 to now, chances are Danny Marks has heard it, and can sing it. And maybe even put a new spin on it. The velvety bass voice behind JAZZ.FM91’s weekly Bluz.fm radio show not only talks the talk, but has walked the walk his entire life. Marks has released two highly acclaimed original albums, the all-instrumental Guitarchaeology in 1998 and a biographical confessional, True. In 2004 his third disc Big Town Boy was a romp through home town classics winning a big glossy rave in Billboard Magazine. Currently, Danny is finishing up tracks for his latest, A Friend in the Blues, due to be released in spring 2010.

MARIANNE GIRARD

A 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards Nominee for Best Contemporary Vocalist, Marianne Girard is a truly captivating performer. European radio calls her 'a Canadian nightingale' and says “she will melt your heart and move your feet.” And, back home Penguin Eggs raves, “Songs delivered with a lovely, compelling voice that is full of passion.” Greg Quill says, “her latest album Pirate Days is a revelation ...alternately bold and tender, the tunes are clever and memorable, the production tasteful and the ensemble musicianship of the finest order. But on Pirate Days it's the vocal performances that stay with you. They're warm, inclusive, commanding. The confessional, occasionally ribald tone of the songs is served exquisitely by a voice that's unequivocally pure and joyfully unrestrained.”

Philip Brown
(Pictured)

 

FULL ARTIST LINEUP:
Alan Gerber, Alfie Smith, Amy Campbell, Bob Snider, Brian Blain, Brian Gladstone, Brock Zeman, ChoirGirlz, D’Arcy Wickhan, Dan McVeigh, Darrell Grant, David Celia, David Gillis, David Leask, David Newland, Eric Fisher, Graydon James, Howard Gladstone, Ian Reid, Joan Beson, Joe Hall, John Jackson and Steve Paul Simms, Laura Fernandez, Lynn Harrison, Marg Stowe, Marc Charron, Max Woolaver, Maxim Budnick, Michael Brennan & Steve Briggs, Michael Jerome Browne, Mose Scarlett, Mr Rick, Mr Rick & Biscuits, Noah Zacharin, Nonie Crete., Peter Verity, Philip Brown, Related, Rick Hodgson, Rick Taylor, Rosemary Phelan w/ Jason LaPrade, Russell Leon, Seb Agnello, Shawn Brush, String Bone, Sue & Dwight, Suzie Vinnick, Swamp Ward Orchestra, Tim Jackson, Tony Quarrington, William and Polly
DIGGING ROOTS

Digging Roots has been nominated for over 25 awards including a Juno award. They were honoured in Nov. 2009 with Best Group at the CAMAs and have also been awarded with best blues, best songwriter, best new artist, and most recently best group/duo among others. Building on the success of their first full-length studio recording Seeds, Digging Roots (Raven and Shoshona), brings their latest sonic offering We Are. Released to a packed house at Toronto’s Mod Club in October ‘09 they continued the momentum, wrapping up with a jam-packed Canadian summer tour. With songs like the title track, ‘We Are’ and, ‘Spring to Come’, this latest album demonstrates the genre-bending and experimental interest of the band and marks a new turn for them as artists. The collection of songs on “We Are’ sifts their acoustic blues-driven sound into a psychedelic – folk – hick – hop feast with a dash of reggae and a pinch of jazz. All is underscored by their Indigenous roots and socially poignant lyrics. Watch for them this year at the Olympics, Australia, Mexico, and on their cross-Canada tour!

JON BROOKS

A 2009 Canadian Folk Music Award Nominee ‘Best Songwriter’ 2006 /2009, winner of the 2009 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, Canadian 2008 winner of the Porcupine Award and OCFF ‘Songs From The Heart’ winner in 2007, Brooks draws inspiration from those living on the outskirts of approval. In his own words he comments, “ultimately, the folk singer is trying to politicize love – to lobby for compassion to be our principle representative in government office…I want my songs to be three and half-minute pills which induce upon the listener empathy toward others.” After his critically acclaimed and much loved release Ours and the Shepherds, his third and most recent CD Moth Nor Rust, is an investigation into all the living things that neither moth nor rust can touch: love, hope, trust, memory, inspiration, justice, and faith. Lyrics from the album were published by Canada’s foremost literary quarterly Exile Editions. More than a celebration of the inner life, the collection is an implicit reminder of how the folk song is a necessary and moral means toward lifting humanity in the 21st century.

AL LERMAN

Considered among the top harmonica players in the country, Lerman is a two-time Juno Award Winner with his electric blues band Fathead and his sax playing recently garnered a Maple Blues Award nomination for Horn Player of the Year. Playing acoustic blues at Winterfolk, he is a journeyman musician who performs with sizzle and a whole lot of soul. Many of his original songs appear on Fathead’s latest disc Where’s The Blues Taking Me and he has produced or appeared on albums by the likes of Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith, Morgan Davis, Little Mack Simmons, Rita Chiarelli, Rick Fines and many more.

SULTANS OF STRING

The 2009 Canadian Folk Music Award triple nominee winning Instrumental Group of the Year with Sultans of String, a 2009 JUNO Award nomination for bandleader Chris McKhool and a 2009 Canadian Folk Music Award and 2009 Parents’ Choice Award winner for Chris McKhool with Fiddlefire, Sultans of String members are Canada’s ambassadors of musical diversity.