All BLUES Day-featuring Tom Lavin & The Legendary Powder Blues Band

Do you love BLUES music? This day is for you.

Headlined by award-winning Tom Lavin and The Legendary Powder Blues Band. Also featuring award-winning Miss Emily, Suzie Vinnick and The Tony D Band and we will be introducing a new artist selected from our Discovery Series.  

For over four decades Powder Blues has been Canada’s leading blues band. The mix of swing, blues, jazz, rock & roll and r & b has an appeal so wide that people from seven to seventy swing side by side at a Powder Blues concert. Over the years the band has toured non-stop through Canada, the US and overseas, sharing their feel-good music. Their debut album, ‘Uncut’, was ignored by major labels who said there was ‘no market for the blues’. Undiscouraged, the band sent it to radio stations whose switchboards lit up with calls asking, ‘who’s that?’ After selling 30,000 copies in a few weeks, the same record labels competed to sign the band. To date Powder Blues have sold over a million records worldwide. Highlights include winning Canada’s Juno, headlining the Montreux Switzerland Jazz Festival, winning the Blues Foundation Award in Memphis, Tennessee and touring the US and Europe with legends like Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, James Brown, Albert Collins, James Cotton and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Leader, Tom Lavin wrote many of the band’s best-known songs including ‘Doin’ It Right’ (‘On the Wrong Side of Town’) and ‘Boppin With the Blues’. Born in Chicago, where he played with local bands and blues legends, Tom moved to Vancouver where he worked as studio musician, song writer, band leader, record producer and film composer.

Miss Emily has been a highlight on our stage more than once. Dynamic performer who has made many non-blues lovers come begging for more of 'those blues'. “LIVE at the Isabel” was released on October 30, 2020 to rave reviews but due to the never-ending pandemic she couldn’t promote it with a tour. So instead, Team Emily submitted it for JUNO consideration. When we shared our submission with music industry insiders, the responses were not what we expected. “You submitted a live album – that’s crazy.”

“Live albums don’t get nominated. It’s a waste of time.” Crazy? Not really.Waste of time? Definitely not.

On March 1st, 2022 Miss Emily, “LIVE at the Isabel” was nominated for the JUNO Blues Album of the Year. That sequence of events - from the Maple Blues Awards of 2020 to the 2022 JUNO Nominations - encapsulates all you need to know about Miss Emily. She specializes in overcoming insurmountable challenges and scaling metaphorical mountains. Her work ethic was forged in the foundries of Southern Ontario’s bars and nightclubs. Her resilience is a product of 20 years in an industry that can be, at best, “unfriendly” towards women. She has an innovative spirit and creative force born out of necessity, and her incomparable vocals are surpassed only by her electrifying, roof-rattling performances.”An angelic voice with just a hint of sultry devilishness. This gal is a rocket ready to take-off!”

– Rob Baker (The Tragically Hip)

Suzie Vinnick has also brought audiences back to our stage. She wows audiences with her guitar and bass chops everytime. Saskatoon native transplanted to the Niagara Region of Ontario, Roots and Blues singer and musician Suzie Vinnick is a 3X Juno Nominee, CFMA Award winner, and a 12-time winner of the Maple Blues Award for songwriting, female vocalist, acoustic act and more. Suzie has a voice you’ve heard a thousand times and one you’ll never forget. It soars, it growls, it whispers and it shouts from a deep, deep well of emotion. The pure joy she exudes when she plays her guitars is so worth the show.

In July 2023 Suzie was a special guest of Blackie & the Rodeo Kings at Ottawa Bluesfest along with Daniel Lanois. She has also toured nationally with Downchild, Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Café, with ASV (Charlie A’Court, Lloyd Spiegel and Vinnick), the John McDermott Band and she performed for Canadian Peacekeepers in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. She was also the voice of Tim Horton’s for 5 years.

Her latest album is entitled “Fall Back Home”. “At times introspective and vibrant, Suzie Vinnick has created a roots album of rocking rhythms with bluesy moods and country soul. Her finest yet? Quite possibly.” Ferver Coulee (FALL BACK HOME)

Tony D (Diteodoro), guitarist for Juno award winning band MonkeyJunk, has been laying it down for over forty years. MonkeyJunk has amassed twenty Maple Blues awards and a Blues Music Award, (formerly known as The Handy Awards).

At the age of thirteen, Tony began his musical journey on the guitar. Learning mostly in the  blues, rock jazz stylings. From Muddy Waters to Jimi Hendrix to Jimmy Page to Albert King to Wes Montgomery and all the points in between . The Blues and anything that falls under that umbrella being his first love, but Tony D has also explored various forms of music. Flamenco became another obsession and after studying the form for two years he joined a troupe which made him write pseudo-flamenco and Spanish rhythm instrumentals which he still plays today in his solo shows. From The delta to the desert it all comes from places of devotion, musical devotion. “Basically, I’m like Lightnin’ Hopkins with an electric guitar"

Discovery Series: We will be selecting an artist from our Discovery Series applications to open this great event up. We will announce the successful candidate once selected.