Corb Lund continues to move forward in his search for world domination! His second Stony Plain album, Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer, is currently #1 on XM Radio's Americana chart and was #7 last week on R&R's Americana chart. He's just finished a major tour in Texas (along with dates in California and Arizona), as part of his ongoing effort to consolidate his base in the US.
Meanwhile, world figure skating champion Kurt Browning is performing two US network shows using Corb's "Expectation and the Blues" as the music for his routine. The routine was first seen on the CBS network's "Ice Wars XIII" on December 1, and will also be seen on Gretchen Wilson's "Country On Ice" on NBC on December 23. The song is on Corb's Stony Plain debut, Five Dollar Bill.
With both CDs certified as gold albums in Canada, Corb is actually going to take three months off at the beginning of 2007. A vacation? Hardly. He plans to write material for his third album - and he will also take part in a tribute to the great Wilf Carter at a Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame performance in late January. Meanwhile, a new remastered version of his first Stony Plain CD, Five Dollar Bill, is now shipping to retail - and a new single and video of "The Truth Comes Out" (from Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer) is being shipped to radio and video outlets.
SATURDAY NIGHT BLUES: 20 YEARS OF AMAZING MUSIC
Stony Plains President Holger Petersen has hosted CBC Radio One's "Saturday Night Blues" show for 20 years, surely a landmark in radio history. To celebrate the programme's birthday, CBC Records has released a two-CD collection of live performances recorded for the show. More than 30 Canadian artists are featured. Among the artists heard in live performance: Ray Bonneville, Sue Foley, David Wilcox, Jeff Healey, Paul Reddick, Ellen McIlwaine, Dutch Mason, Harry Manx, Big Dave McLean, Michel Pickett, Roxanne Potvin, Jim Byrnes, Colin James and Colin Linden, Dawn Tyler Watson, Mel Brown, David Gogo and the late Long John Baldry. The recordings were cut in clubs, concert halls, CBC studios and at blues, folk and jazz festivals from coast to coast. The two-CD set is on CBC Records distributed by Universal Music in Canada.
Another 20th anniversary! To mark the 20th anniversary of the "Women's Blues Revue", the Toronto Blues Society has released a CD with songs by 15 artists, all recorded by the CBC for "Saturday Night Blues" at Women's Blues Revues over the last decade. The event this year, from Toronto's venerable Massey Hall, was hosted by CBC Radio personality Shelagh Rogers, and since the show was aired live on "Saturday Night Blues", she was joined on stage by Holger Petersen, who became one of the first men to grace the stage since the Revue's early days, before the annual show began to feature an all-female backup band. Websites: www.cbcrecords.ca, www.www.cbc.ca/snb , www.torontobluessociety.com
STONY PLAIN REPACKAGES AND REISSUES TWO JEFF HEALEY JAZZ ALBUMS
Stony Plain has repackaged and reissued the first two Jeff Healey jazz albums - classic jazz outings that broke the mould of the artist's blues/rock career and set him on another path.
Among Friends was cut in 2002 and finds Jeff playing trumpet as well as electric and acoustic guitar. His friends included Dick Sudhalter on trumpet and the late John R.T. Davis on alto. Toronto players - who still play regularly with the Jazz Wizards - include Reide Kaiser on piano, Jesse Barksdale on guitar, Christopher Plock on saxes and clarinet, drummer Gary Scriven and bassist Colin Bray.
Healey's second classic jazz album, Adventures in Jazzland, was originally released in 2004 and features many of the same players; the leader, however, adds valve trombone to the list of instruments he plays. Also check out the work of young Drew Jurecka, certainly the most versatile young violinist playing in Canada today. Both records were originally released - with very limited distribution - on small independent labels. Combined with the release of It's Tight Like That earlier this year, Jeff's entire catalogue of classic jazz CDs is now on Stony Plain worldwide.
In extra news, Jeff is moving his famed Toronto club to newer and larger premises in Toronto, where he will continue to play with his rock/blues band and the Jazz Wizards, while hosting star artists in the blues, rock, and country fields. The new club, Jeff Healey's Roadhouse, is at 56 Blue Jays Way, in the midst of Toronto's "entertainment district" and opposite the restaurant named after the one-time Edmonton hockey great, Wayne Gretzky.
[To read the other articles from Stony Plain Records that were omitted here, visit their website at www.stonyplainrecords.com. Webmistress]
