SAULT STE MARIE, ONTARIO ~~~~~~ December 31, 2020 (LSN) 2020 was the 10th anniversary of the Sault Blues Society. The Executive had discussed and was working with Rotary Sault Ste. Marie to present an “all blues stage night” as part of Rotaryfest 2020. We had also been in contact with 4 traveling bands that were routing through the Soo in 2020 to work out the possibility of performing for the fine blues fans of the Soo. Unfortunately, these acts were not possible due to the worldwide COVID pandemic. We hope that you enjoy our Virtual Blues Miniseries with the expectations of live performances to return to local stages in the future!!
We at the Sault Blues Society hope that you are all managing through this time of uncertainty and lack of live music. To help you with your music fix, we have during the past several months organized and recorded 5 local bands (to date) who performed live from the floor of Joe’s Garage. Multi camera recording was done by Christian Lemay from Shaw Spotlight with assistance from Adrian Vilaca of theborderline.ca and sound engineers Ron Maclean and Don Bruni.
The premier release will be on Thursday January 7th at 8pm on Shaw Spotlight Sault Ste. Marie, the Sault Blues Society’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb1odSXEJWwIi-WIDZqdLzA, and https://theborderline.ca/ all releases will be at 8pm. There will be subsequent releases on the following 4 Thursday’s, Jan. 14th, Jan. 21st, Jan. 28th and Feb. 4th all at 8pm. Repeats will also be broadcast on Shaw Spotlight Sault Ste. Marie on the Saturday at 9pm following the original release.
This miniseries was made possible with funding from the city of Sault Ste. Marie’s Cultural Financial Assistance Grant, theborderline.ca, Shaw Spotlight, Joe Della Savia, owner of Joe’s Garage, the Sault Blues Society and the 20 great local Sault Ste. Marie musicians that participated in this project.
All songs were performed live from the floor of Joe’s Garage and all are original compositions by some of our great local musicians.
Bands, members, and release dates:
Blues Shop - Thursday January 7th 8pm
- Mike Yurich - Guitar and vocals
- Josh Norling - Sax
- Valerie Powley - Vocals and percussion
- Jeff Pinnett - Drums
- Warren Reville - Bass
- Eugene Gassi – Keys
Big Wheel and the Spokes - Thursday January 14th 8pm
- Jay Case - Guitars and vocals
- Frank Deresti – Bass
- Cliff Alloy – Drums
Cosmic Blues Band - Thursday January 21st 8pm
- Ray Gassi - Guitar and vocals
- Mike Yurich - Guitar and keyboard
- Pierre Vaillancourt - Bass
- Chris Johns – Drums
Blues Harvest - Thursday January 28th 8pm
- Keith Conway - Guitar
- Jake Rendell - Guitars and vocals
- Josh Norling - Sax/Ewie
- Michael DiSanto - Bass
- Ken Coulter - Drums
Rusty McCarthy - Thursday February 4th 8pm
- Rusty McCarthy – Guitar and vocals
- Josh Norling – Sax
- Lindsay Pugh – Bass
- Chris Johns – Drums
- Maja Bannerman – Vocals
#LSN_SSM #LSN_Arts