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Downchild Blues Band to Play Benefit for Jane Vasey Memorial Scholarship Fund

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Downchild Blues Band To Play Benefit For Jane Vasey Memorial Scholarship Fund

Fund Annually Awards Scholarships To Brandon University's School of Music Piano Students

Who: Downchild, with special guest appearances from The Happy Pals and pianist and JazzFM personality Bill King
What: A celebration in memory of Downchild pianist Jane Vasey When: Tuesday November 27, 8.00 p.m.
Where: Hugh's Room, 2261 Dundas St. W, south of Bloor W How much: Tickets $28.50 in advance, $32.50 at door, available at the venue (416) 531-6604 www.hughsroom.com.

Dinner reservations recommended, but not necessary.

Downchild, which has been a vital part of Canada's blues scene since it launched its career on Toronto's Spadina Avenue back in 1969, is headlining a special performance at Hugh's Room on Tuesday November 27. Despite the fact that the band is Toronto-based, it plays only rarely in Toronto itself.

The band will be joined by pianist Bill King and Toronto's leading New Orleans-style band The Happy Pals in a celebration in memory of Jane Vasey, who played keyboards in Downchild for eight years before her death in 1982.

The event is a benefit for the Jane Vasey Memorial Scholarship fund set up at Brandon University's School of Music, where she studied before coming to Toronto. Money raised at the benefit will be doubled in a special program sponsored by the Government of Manitoba. Each year the fund, founded by her parents and the band, distributes two $2500.00 scholarships to students in piano performance at the school.

Downchild has been nominated for a record number of Maple Blues Awards, earning nods as Entertainers of the Year, Electric Act of the Year, and for Recording of the Year for the “Live at the Palais Royale" CD, produced by bandleader Donnie “Mr. Downchild" Walsh. Every member of the band - Michael Fonfars, Pat Carey, Mike Fitzpatrick, Gary Kendall - is nominated in their respective instrumental categories, and singer Chuck Jakcosn is nominated as Male Vocalist of the Year.

Quotes:

“Downchild is one of those musical rarities for which there's virtually no difference between the studio recording experience and the live event. The Toronto blues band, now in its fourth decade, has always been a no-tricks outfit.

“So why all the razzle dazzle and hoopla over the release of a Downchild live album, especially since it's not the first? The answer is self-evident. Before a hometown crowd, fans who know every nuance in the shape and flow of these timeless, loping shuffles and crisp, pounding beats, front man Don Walsh and his buddies - singer Chuck Jackson, bassist Gary Kendall, pianist Michael Fonfara, saxophonist Pat Carey and drummer Michael Fitzpatrick - had no choice last fall but to crank things up

“They have made this collection of trademark Walsh compositions a bigger, better and more electrifying experience than anything their well-served admirers could have imagined. More power to them for having pulled it off with such finesse. There's not a wasted moment in this entire 11-song set. Solos are blissfully precise, colourful and explosive in turn. And Jackson has never been in better voice.

“No overdubs, no after-the-fact studio electrickery, no second thoughts - Downchild nailed it in one. This is the classic take-to-your-grave testament of one of the greatest blues bands in the world. Period." - Toronto Star.

Richard Flohil is also presenting Hugh's Room concerts with Alasdair Frazer and Natalie Haas with Genticorum (Thursday Nov. 8). Tom Russell and Justin Rutledge (Friday Nov. 9), and Laura Smith and Lori Yates (Sunday Dec. 9), and Honeyboy Edwards with Bobby Rush (Sunday Dec. 16)

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