My introduction into Blues and Country styles of music came later in life… I went from Paul McCartney & Wings when I was nine; then it was Chris de Burgh, who I liked for his writing style; my first real introduction into power-blues was when I discovered Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue when I was fifteen; Pink Floyd came soon after, then I bounced around Punk music for a looooooong time, a little later on I began listening to a lot of Industrial music, like Ministry, KMFDM, and Sons Of Freedom then, when I was maybe 20-years old, a little teenie weenie bit of Country-Pop seeped into my listening orbit, mostly because of bar jukeboxes. But real country, like like Cash, Waylon, Hank Williams, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Emmy Lou Harris, didn’t make its way into my cassette collection until I was in my early-thirties.

And that only came about due to my earlier fascination with The Blues. I had my Blues Education when I was in my mid-twenties, when I spent almost ten hours straight interviewing Blues DJ legend, Brian Murphy [bio here], as part of my College Journalism program. As part of my research I was loaned cassettes of his hours-long show, ‘The Source’, on CHEZ 106.1 FM in Ottawa by a few of his fans, then Brian gave me a tonne of mixed-Blues music on cassettes after the interview. What I knew about Blues going into my time with Brian, was that George Thorogood made decent drinking songs, Eric Clapton was super into cocaine, and not much else. Coming out, I was a huge fan of Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and a crap-tonne of people who were either Blind or a Reverend.

…it was a good friend of mine who, way back in high school, introduced me to ‘Johnny Cash at San Quentin’, so I was aware of the myth and legend of the Outlaw Musicians when I was a lot younger — I wasn’t a complete novice. It was just never cool to publicly mix genres in high school.

After my indoctrination into the Blues [ken burns here], and then a few years later into Country music [ken burns here], I rapidly recognized the similarities between the two genres. Both involved lyrics about poverty, alcohol, drug use, abuse, Christianity, the culture of the American South, hard labour, running from the law, making deals with the Devil by the Crossroads, and they even share the same chord structure.

…all of that to say, I really enjoy the music of both genres. So the Hawkesbury Country-Blues Fest should have been on my radar years ago, but it wasn’t until last year when I found out it actually exists [link here]. And now the organizer, Yves Paquette, is retiring from his role as a Councillor in Hawkesbury’s local government, and he’s considering ending his involvement in the Festival as well, so the Events future might be in jeopardy, and is now at its own Crossroads — yes, I buried that lede… sorry about that.

I managed to catch almost all of the acts this year, most of which performed covers of 70’s, 80’s and 90’s Blues and Country tunes, I’m not sure how much original music was played, there was some, but just not enough. And I think that might be a problem going forward… most of the audience this year were older Boomers, with a few younger parents and their children so, during most of the performances on Saturday, it was kind of like a sing-a-long nostalgia-filled memory test.

I definitely, however, don’t want to minimize the talent on stage. All of the acts were absolutely worth seeing, especially Norm Campeau, JP Aubin, and Sidetracks [here]. I just want to see and hear more original music.

…anyway, to see photos from another wonderful couple of days of music in Hawkesbury, just click on the first picture to get the carousel going — remember, comments are always welcome, and they’re almost entirely free to make, so no excuses.