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Alvin Youngblood Hart.

Winter Roots And Blues RoundUP
Various Venues and Show times, Feb. 25-28

Peter North has the blues. Ba-de-ba-duh-dum.

While the CKUA man might have plenty of good reasons to cry the blues, that’s another story. In this story, North has the blues (ba-de-ba-duh-dum) and is bringing them to town, in the shape of the Winter Roots and Blues Roundup, co-presented with Folkways Alive from the University of Alberta.

“Both Calgary and Saskatoon have successful winter blues festivals, so it’s the perfect time to do something like that here,” North says. Beyond the fact that it means Edmonton can join forces with the other festivals and bring in some spectacular acts, late February in Alberta just seems like the perfect time to be singing the blues.

“Everybody needs a reason to get out and warm up the winter,” he says. “What better way to do that than with a music event like this?”

So in six short weeks, (“We just got the idea in mid-December,” he says), North managed to pull some strings with his musical contacts across North America, bringing together some of the world’s top blues and roots performers. He’s booked them into intimate spaces around town, like the Blue Chair Cafe and Fiddler’s Roost, providing a unique atmosphere for audiences more used to the huge outdoor festivals of the summer.

This is the first year of the festival, so they’re starting out small — but small only in terms of venues and dates. Large in terms of scope and talent. “We got really lucky,” North says. “We scored big with Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Mark Hummel and David Rea. Not to mention that our musicians on the local scene [like Terry McDade and Graham Guest] are on par with the best in the world.”

Which leads North to gush a little about Edmonton musicians. “For some reason, we’re very quiet about the fact that we have some incredible talents in our city. It seems cliche to call them ‘world-class,’ but that’s what they are. The McDades play to huge crowds all over the world. And you can’t find a better piano player than Graham [Guest] anywhere.”

Folkways Alive!
The Festival’s Feb. 25 show features the music of the legendary Folkways collection at the University of Alberta.

“Folkways was a record label based in New York, putting out albums through the ’50s to the ’80s,” North says. The label released more than 2,000 recordings in that time, and upon impresario Moses Asch’s death in 1986, the collection was split between the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., and, amazingly enough, the U of A (where Asch’s son taught anthropology).

“This concert is a great highlight of the Folkways Collection,” he says. “It’s going to cover a lot of ground, from early Jelly Roll Morton, to Lead Belly and guys like Roosevelt Sykes and Memphis Slim. And with players like Rusty Zinn, Mark Hummel and David Rea — well, it’s going to be an amazing night.”

Another highlight of the festival will be the Mike Seeger tribute concert on Feb. 27. “Mike Seeger passed away last summer,” says North of the folk musician (and half-brother to Pete Seeger), “So David Rea, Byron Myhre and Terry McDade jumped on board, coming up with song suggestions and they’ve put together a really great program.  David Rea considered Seeger to be one of his most important mentors, so it’s going to be really personal and intimate. And it also just so happened that [Edmonton filmmaker] Lorna Thomas interviewed Seeger shortly before his death, so she’s put together a film about him that will play that night as well.”

Blues in Schools
Not only is North’s Blues Roundup hitting stages around the city, but they’re also taking the music to the schools. They’ll be doing formal concerts for kids in Leduc, and more impromptu  performances for Edmonton schools.

“Kids really need exposure to this kind of music,” says North. “Music ... is its own language, really, and by seeing how diverse musicians communicate with each other through music, well, I just think that presents some pretty important lessons.”

About music and about life.

“And a lot of kids don’t have the chance to see music performed live these days,” he says. “For one thing, the number of venues that carry live music has seriously dropped. And unfortunately, for a lot of kids, the cost of going to concerts is prohibitive.”

Too true. Gone are the days of seeing top acts for peanuts. “I remember back in the ’70s when I was a kid, seeing all kinds of great performers for next to nothing. Kids don’t have that kind of opportunity today, when they have to pay $60 plus a pop, so I think it’s so important to round out their musical experiences by taking these kinds of shows to them.”

And the musicians are entirely on board with this kind of endeavour. Grammy award-winning Alvin Youngblood Hart, and one of North’s headliners at the festival, is delighted to be bringing the blues to schools.

“You know, I’ve done that kind of thing in Mississippi,” the Memphis-based musician says, “and it’s a pretty amazing thing. Some of the kids look, well, bored or whatever, but you can see it in some of the others. It’s like you’ve turned a light on or something. That’s what makes it worth doing.”

Ba-de-ba-duh-dum.

The Love Child of Howlin’ Wolf and Link Wray
Alvin Youngblood Hart is a blues man. And roots man. And rock ’n’ roller. And a little bit country, too. His music defies classification, and he’s boggled as to why people try to put his music in neat little boxes.

“When I was growing up in the [San Francisco] Bay area in the late ’60s,” Hart says, “it was a musical mecca, and I listened to everything.  I was exposed to a lot of things musically.

And then, when I was 13 or 14, when I decided quite seriously that I wanted to be a player, well, I just wanted to play music, not any specific kind.”

And the music industry was different back then as well. “You know, a few years ago, a friend of mine sent me a Christmas card that was an AM radio playlist from 1973. And the diversity of music was huge. Everything from Bob Dylan to Frank Sinatra to blues to rock. It wasn’t about the narrow little categories our radio stations play now. Radio has really changed the way we consume music in the last few decades.”

So Hart continues to do his own thing, blending genres and playing diverse shows with a wide variety of musicians — from Ruthie Foster to Bo Diddley, and has been described as “the love child of Howlin’ Wolf and Link Wray,” a commendation he thoroughly enjoys.

“Yeah, don’t think too much about the image of that, but I’m pretty honoured to be compared to either of those musicians,” he says.

As for playing in Edmonton, Hart is looking forward to the long trek north. “It’s been a long while since I was in Edmonton last, and yeah, it’s going to be a great time. I am looking forward to playing some good shows and doing what I love for all the folks up there.”

Ba-de-ba-duh-dum.