Booking is going like gangbusters at the Roots and Blues office.
Fourteen acts are already on the slate for this, the 20th anniversary of the popular summer festival.
“The lineup thus far is incredibly diverse – a rainbow of musical genres that has plenty for everyone,” says marketing manager Scott Crocker. “The 20th anniversary is a landmark year for Roots and Blues and this 2012 lineup and its wide style range is a reflection of that spirit of ‘celebrating together’ that has seen the festival grow to what it is today.”
Added to recent signing of Five Alarm Funk and James ‘Super Chikan’ Johnson and the Fighting Cocks, check out this remarkable talent pool:
Singer-songwriter Alex Cuba, whose trademark sugarcane-sweet melodies, pop-soul hooks and rock chords subtly subvert commonly held notions of what Cuban music is.
Scions of an ancient Celtic line, Dawn and Margie Beaton have appeared at concerts, ceilidhs, and festivals, both internationally and at home in Maritime Canada.
Alt-country road-warriors, Cuff the Duke, blend traditional country and folk music with indie rock elements to synthesize a sound uniquely their own.
Declan O’Donovan is an alternative roots/blues musician from the Yukon Territory, who has been impressing audiences of all types with his high-energy live show and his skill as a pianist.
Delhi 2 Dublin continues to break the mould one album after another, busting genres as they go. It’s as if the band has been sent on a mission to plug into some large socket to electrify the people, to charge up their energy.
Hazmat Modine draws from the rich soil of American music of the ’20s and ’30s through to the ’50s and early ’60s, blending elements of early blues, hokum jugband, swing, klezmer, New Orleans R & B, and Jamaican rocksteady.
Juno nominated Canadian indie rock band Hollerado members are global travellers – true originals – and gobs of fun.
Exquisite and sultry boy girl duets weave through newstyle prog-folk of Raleigh, a cello, guitar, drum trio that pulls unexpected beat memories from the places your heart has heard before.
Two-time Juno-winning banjoist Jayme Stone makes music inspired by folk traditions from around the world. His repertoire includes a movement from Bach’s French Suite, a Moorish sword-fighting dance and Stone’s lush, edgy originals.
Also onboard, Roots Blues traveller Markus James joins forces with Wassonrai, four West African music masters, to cook up what NPR Music calls “Rock with a West African twist.”
With their most recent work, We Walk The Road, brilliant multicultural American funk and soul group, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, explores the relationship between gospel, blues, and rock, playing everything from 1920’s blues up to modern-day songs by Prince.
Shred Kelly is a formulation of friends and foot-stompin’ good times born in the East Kootenay’s. The six-piece band is best known for mixing clawhammer banjo riffs that tear the fabric of space and time with a ghostly mandolin, high voltage guitars, fierce drums, and hauntingly sweet harmonies to produce a sound that has been properly coined “Stoke Folk.”
“This is just the beginning – we’ve got plenty more to come,” says Crocker.
Special advance ticket pricing will be in place until May 25. Visit www.rootsandblues.ca, call 250-833-4096 or visit the office at the Salmon Arm Fairgrounds to get your tickets for the “party.”
