By John Gardiner
Special to The Voice
If you head out to the KBD Club in Chatham for one of the shows presented by the Chatham-Kent Chapter of the Canada South Blues Society, you will see a joint that is really jumpin’.
“It’s such a fun environment,” said Blues Society organizer Aug Polowick. “Ask anyone who has been to one of our shows and they’ll tell you what an exciting night out our shows are. There’s fantastic music, lots of fun, dancing and great crowds.”
Polowick added today’s blues are much different than early blues music.
“There’s a misconception that there’s only sad songs in the blues, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. “There’s been a lot of evolution in this music over the last 100 years. While we still respect where this truly American music came from, it has expanded to encompass many styles and moods.
The Chatham-Kent Blues group, which holds most of its shows at the KBD, is in place to raise awareness of blues and roots music; a genre that sits as the foundation of many different types of music, from pop to country to folk to rock ’n’ roll. Most of the music we listen to in our culture has been based on the blues for many decades.
“We want to present a great live music experience in a fun social environment,” Polowick said, “along with our mandate of creating awareness about the blues through community, social media and keeping this amazing genre of music alive.”
The organization has been operating for more than a decade and is a non-profit run by volunteers.
It is an affiliate of the Blues Foundation based out of Memphis, and is funded by memberships, corporate patrons of the blues, along with ticket sales.
It has presented local, regional, national and international blues and roots acts, including Grammy nominees and Blues Hall of Fame acts.
“These are some of the best acts that the blues/roots genre has to offer and we are privileged to bring them to Chatham-Kent” said Polowick. “They consistently win some of the biggest awards in the industry.”
As an example of that, the group’s next show on March 2 at the KBD will present Selwyn Birchwood, who has four nominations at the upcoming Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Tenn., including Band of the Year.
Tickets are available now.
“Pretty well everything we listen to comes out of the blues,” Polowick said. “It really is music for everybody…and these bands we bring in from all parts of Canada and the U.S. are amazingly good and crazy fun.”
Tickets are available online at ticketscene.ca or call Bob Christmas at 519-676-9150 for more info or to reserve tickets.
