Nigel Mack and the Blues Attack (with Summer and the Sinners)
Where: Esquimalt Legion, 622 Admirals Rd.
When: Tonight, 9 p.m.
Tickets: $20 at door ($5 discount for military personnel or Blues Society members)
American guitarist Billy Peek once released an album cheekily titled Can a White Boy Play the Blues?
Canadian bluesman Nigel Mack would respond: "Certainly."
But the Saskatoon native did encounter initial skepticism a decade ago when he moved to Chicago, the blues world's bustling hub.
Blues music was created by African-Americans living in the deep South. It is inextricably tied to the experience of growing up black in America. So not surprisingly, Mack encountered pockets of resistance as a Canuck trying to break into the Chicago blues scene.
"It was devilishly hard," he said. "There was a certain level of racism."
Mack, who plays Esquimalt tonight, says being any kind of musical newcomer to the Windy City presents a challenge. The blues scene is competitive. Musicians must hustle to make a buck.
"If you're just visiting Chicago [as a musician] that's one thing. But if you all of a sudden come to stay, they treat you a little differently.
They realize you're not going away," Mack said with a laugh. "One has to work really hard to make oneself known."
Mack first visited Chicago in 1992 at the invitation of Professor Eddie Lusk, a blues pianist who'd played with Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush. Lusk had heard a recording of Mack's. Impressed, he invited him to join The Professor's Blues Revue during the Chicago Blues Festival.
"This is where you should be," Lusk advised Mack at the time. The Canadian singer, guitarist and blues harpist took the plunge in 2003, relocating from Vancouver.
"I was always trying to get my Vancouver band to sound like a Chicago band. So I ended up moving to Chicago," Mack said this week, phoning from a family cottage at Howe Sound.
As far as he knows ("and I know pretty much everybody in the scene") he's the sole Canuck blues band leader living and working in Chicago. Mack gigs mostly at Smoke Daddy barbecue joint, although he also plays the Kingston Mines blues club, Buddy Guy's Legends and the House of Blues.
Mack, who lived in Victoria briefly in the late 1980s, became interested in the blues as a teen in Saskatoon. His father, a jazz and blues fan, took him to a Muddy Waters concert when he was 18 years old - something that made a deep impression.
By 1987, Mack had a job hosting a Saturday afternoon jam session at a Saskatoon blues club called Buddy's on Broadway. There, he met touring blues musicians, including saxophonist Eddie Shaw and guitarist Phil Guy (Buddy Guy's brother). His mentor was Big Dave McLean, who advised Mack to concentrate on the blues.
"He said, 'You gotta focus and do all the blues you can.' And I realized within the blues genre, I could have all the fun I want," Mack said.
Along the way, he took an arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan in painting, drawing and printmaking. But Mack always intended to become a professional musician. He toured hard between 1987 and 2004, averaging 200 dates a year and hitting almost every state in the U.S.
Mack's successes include having his original songs featured on such TV series as Dawson's Creek, The Street and Time of Your Life. His 2011 recording, Devil's Secrets, was voted best self-produced CD by the Windy City Blues Society.
Mack originally lived in downtown Chicago. Now he lives in a suburb. After 10 years, he says he feels a part of the blues community. He comes to Canada regularly to tour and sometimes teach (Mack was an instructor for Saskatoon's Blues in the Schools program).
Will Nigel Mack ever return to his home and native land for good?
"I don't know," he said, "because I've sort of put down some roots in Chicago."
