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| Mike Mallon - Lazy Mike & the Rockin' Recliners |
In 2014 I started taking photographs of musicians at Blues Festivals, Jams and other Blues events on Vancouver Island. Little did I know that it would turn into one of the most passionate endeavours of my life. Fast forward to 2021 and you will find that I have been working on a Blues book about the contemporary Blues scene of Vancouver Island with more than twenty interviews of prominent artists now transcribed. We are one year into Covid and much has changed in the live music industry. I have been wondering whether I should even continue working on the book. My energy for this project has ebbed and flowed, mostly ebbed. I was on the verge of shelving the entire project and when I consulted with my steady collaborator, Andrew Brown of Barely North Entertainment, he suggested that I consider posting small sections of what would be the book into a blog format for now. That felt less formidable and so here is my first post.
My personal journey into becoming a photographer of musicians and being included in the Blues scene of Vancouver Island began while attending the 2014 Summertime Blues Festival in Nanaimo. The year before, CTV nicknamed Nanaimo the "Memphis of the North," an apt name, well-deserved. There were eighteen bands with headliners being Harpdog Brown, Jim Byrnes and Canned Heat. It was well attended and I found the people in the crowd friendly with many people dancing and smiling at each other. I could feel the joy around me. That is a strange thing to say, being that it is a festival of The Blues, but it seems to have that effect on people. There was a stellar lineup of musicians, including Jim Byrnes and Harpdog Brown. Canned Heat closed the festival and the crowd went wild including me.
I took close to two thousand photographs over the three days of the musicians on the stage changing hourly.
Grant Payne, the Artistic Director of the 2014 Festival was quoted in an article dated August 25, 2016 in the Times Colonist as saying: “A lot of people have this picture in their head that blues is slow and depressing. If you come to the festival, you’re going to see a lot of people dancing and having a great time. The music is really upbeat and uptempo,” he said.
I can vouch for that. It was an uplifting, fun, pleasant introduction to the Blues community on Vancouver Island.
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Dale Spalding - Canned Heat
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Hard-working Crew
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| Jim Byrnes |
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Ian Perry
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| Harp Dog Brown |
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The crowd having a great time.
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My beginning foray into the wide variety of music in Blues, the Artists and the community could not have been off to a better start. Follow the continuing journey in my next post.
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