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Brotherhood of the blues ‘a riot’

What: Black Hen Travelling Roadshow Revue featuring Jim Byrnes, Steve Dawson and Big Dave McLean When: Friday, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7) Where: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (680 Courtney St.
Jim Byrnes 2_2.jpg
Bluesman Jim Byrnes comes to Victoria Friday with the Black Hen Travelling Roadshow Revue.

What: Black Hen Travelling Roadshow Revue featuring Jim Byrnes, Steve Dawson and Big Dave McLean

When: Friday, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7)

Where: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (680 Courtney St.)

Tickets: $20 at Lyle’s Place, Ivy’s Bookshop, Long and McQuade, and beaconridgeproductions.com; $25 at the door

 

The star-studded Black Hen Travelling Roadshow Revue has been delighting audiences across Western Canada, with standing-ovation stops at five cities so far.

Jim Byrnes, the longtime Canadian blues favourite, doesn’t expect the tenor of the tour to change as it winds down with its final four dates, one of which is in Victoria on Friday night.

“The music is a riot,” said Byrnes, who had a rare day off from the tour on Tuesday. “It’s a great mix of styles. It’s not all blues. There’s roots stuff and I do a few country-ish numbers and a hymn. I think people have got something to look forward to.”

Byrnes, one of the highest-ranking blues practitioners in the country, is joined by fellow headliners Steve Dawson and Big Dave McLean, all of whom record for Dawson’s Black Hen label. Putting together an impressive lineup of solo performers with 10 Juno Award nominations between them made sense from a business perspective, Byrnes said. But their individual attributes have also meshed together beautifully.

There is a “festival-esque” feeling to the revue, which is reminiscent of the popular songwriters’ circles at various roots festivals in North America.

“We’ve got a list of songs that we’re able to pull out of the bag, but we’re not just pulling stuff out of the air,” Byrnes said with a laugh. “People deserve better than us trying to figure out stuff on stage.”

The trio is joined by bassist/mandonlinist Jeremy Holmes throughout the evening, which is split into two parts. The first set features individual songs from each of the headliners, while the second portion incorporates everyone on stage at once. They have all worked together previously, Byrnes said of his tour mates, which helps. But the timing of all three having new releases out in stores and on the same label was too good to pass up.

Byrnes likens the camaraderie of artists on the tour to something of a Black Hen brotherhood, which is made possible by Dawson’s belief in the artists on his independent label. “We share so many similarities, musically and in terms of aesthetics. It’s a rare mix. A major label? To hell with that.”

The symmetry reminds Byrnes of when he was recording for Stony Plain Records, another label whose head (in this case, Holger Petersen) brought together artists with a similar mindset. The same sense of support at Black Hen has fostered a wildly creative atmosphere, Byrnes said.

If nothing else, having his label mates like his stuff is good for the ego, he said with a laugh. “When I was on [labels] Polydor, RCA, and Columbia, I’d get these record reps come out to a show and say, ‘I guess this is OK. I don’t really like this kind of stuff.’ The backing you would get — well, you wouldn’t get it. It was all corporate and extremely impersonal.”

Byrnes is enjoying playing material from his new album, St. Louis Times, on the current tour. He recorded the album with Dawson as producer (the former Vancouverite is now based out of Nashville) as an ode to Byrnes’ hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, one of the lesser-known homes of the blues, according to Byrnes.

He has wanted for years to make an album that paid tribute to St. Louis, where he was born and raised. Byrnes has spent the past 40 years in Vancouver, but he returns regularly to St. Louis, where his family still lives. The recording, which features covers of songs by St. Louis products Chuck Berry, Little Milton, Albert King, Fontella Bass, and Lonnie Johnson, is Byrnes’ valentine to the city.

“People talk about the blues and they think Chicago or Memphis. But St. Louis has got an incredible history. The stuff that came out of there, the stuff that grew there, I wanted to let people know about it.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com