Downchild Blues Band

City Events

The Downchild Blues Band
Headlining Centennial Square June 26, 2016. Can You Hear The Music starts the way all things Downchild should: with the jump–blues sound that makes you want to jump up and dance. And, as band leader Donnie Walsh will tell you himself, that’s the sound Downchild audiences all over the world want to hear. Forty–four years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment since he formed the Downchild Blues Band — Canada's best known and best loved blues outfit — Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the mid–1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It's a moment Walsh — he also answers to his "given" name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II — says he will never forget. "That was it. I was hooked. I never wanted to play anything else." He drove his girlfriend crazy learning Reed's lip–splitting harmonica technique, then James Cotton's. He locked himself away from the world while he picked apart Muddy Waters' and Albert King's guitar licks, reconstructing them in his own inimitable style on a beat–up electric guitar. And when he did venture out, it was to one of Toronto's legendary blues dives to catch his heroes Luther Allison, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, all of them regular visitors in those days to Walsh's hometown of Toronto, Canada's blues capital. Walsh was a good student. He is recognized around the world as both a blues harp virtuoso with few equals, and an unusually expressive guitarist. He wasn't the only one, of course. They say Toronto is built on the blues, but all across Canada the blues, particularly jump–style and Chicago blues that used to blast across the border from radio stations in northern U.S., is a basic, shared language. Singer Chuck Jackson, tenor sax player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick, bassist Gary Kendall, and pianist/organist Michael Fonfara — Walsh's compadres in Downchild for the past decade and a half, and, he says, the "best musicians I've ever played with" — were soaking up the blues in their teenage years as well, in different parts of the country. Downchild’s 17th album, Can You Hear the Music, dropped October 29, 2013, on the Canadian independent label Linus Entertainment. The album is both distinctly Downchild and proudly Canadian, right down to its cover art, which features the iconic Sam The Record Man sign from the landmark Toronto record store on Yonge Street.
The Downchild Blues Band
Headlining Centennial Square June 26, 2016. Can You Hear The Music starts the way all things Downchild should: with the jump–blues sound that makes you want to jump up and dance. And, as band leader Donnie Walsh will tell you himself, that’s the sound Downchild audiences all over the world want to hear. Forty–four years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment since he formed the Downchild Blues Band — Canada's best known and best loved blues outfit — Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the mid–1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It's a moment Walsh — he also answers to his "given" name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II — says he will never forget. "That was it. I was hooked. I never wanted to play anything else." He drove his girlfriend crazy learning Reed's lip–splitting harmonica technique, then James Cotton's. He locked himself away from the world while he picked apart Muddy Waters' and Albert King's guitar licks, reconstructing them in his own inimitable style on a beat–up electric guitar. And when he did venture out, it was to one of Toronto's legendary blues dives to catch his heroes Luther Allison, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, all of them regular visitors in those days to Walsh's hometown of Toronto, Canada's blues capital. Walsh was a good student. He is recognized around the world as both a blues harp virtuoso with few equals, and an unusually expressive guitarist. He wasn't the only one, of course. They say Toronto is built on the blues, but all across Canada the blues, particularly jump–style and Chicago blues that used to blast across the border from radio stations in northern U.S., is a basic, shared language. Singer Chuck Jackson, tenor sax player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick, bassist Gary Kendall, and pianist/organist Michael Fonfara — Walsh's compadres in Downchild for the past decade and a half, and, he says, the "best musicians I've ever played with" — were soaking up the blues in their teenage years as well, in different parts of the country. Downchild’s 17th album, Can You Hear the Music, dropped October 29, 2013, on the Canadian independent label Linus Entertainment. The album is both distinctly Downchild and proudly Canadian, right down to its cover art, which features the iconic Sam The Record Man sign from the landmark Toronto record store on Yonge Street.
The Downchild Blues Band
Headlining Centennial Square June 26, 2016. Can You Hear The Music starts the way all things Downchild should: with the jump–blues sound that makes you want to jump up and dance. And, as band leader Donnie Walsh will tell you himself, that’s the sound Downchild audiences all over the world want to hear. Forty–four years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment since he formed the Downchild Blues Band — Canada's best known and best loved blues outfit — Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the mid–1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It's a moment Walsh — he also answers to his "given" name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II — says he will never forget. "That was it. I was hooked. I never wanted to play anything else." He drove his girlfriend crazy learning Reed's lip–splitting harmonica technique, then James Cotton's. He locked himself away from the world while he picked apart Muddy Waters' and Albert King's guitar licks, reconstructing them in his own inimitable style on a beat–up electric guitar. And when he did venture out, it was to one of Toronto's legendary blues dives to catch his heroes Luther Allison, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, all of them regular visitors in those days to Walsh's hometown of Toronto, Canada's blues capital. Walsh was a good student. He is recognized around the world as both a blues harp virtuoso with few equals, and an unusually expressive guitarist. He wasn't the only one, of course. They say Toronto is built on the blues, but all across Canada the blues, particularly jump–style and Chicago blues that used to blast across the border from radio stations in northern U.S., is a basic, shared language. Singer Chuck Jackson, tenor sax player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick, bassist Gary Kendall, and pianist/organist Michael Fonfara — Walsh's compadres in Downchild for the past decade and a half, and, he says, the "best musicians I've ever played with" — were soaking up the blues in their teenage years as well, in different parts of the country. Downchild’s 17th album, Can You Hear the Music, dropped October 29, 2013, on the Canadian independent label Linus Entertainment. The album is both distinctly Downchild and proudly Canadian, right down to its cover art, which features the iconic Sam The Record Man sign from the landmark Toronto record store on Yonge Street.
The Downchild Blues Band
Headlining Centennial Square June 26, 2016. Can You Hear The Music starts the way all things Downchild should: with the jump–blues sound that makes you want to jump up and dance. And, as band leader Donnie Walsh will tell you himself, that’s the sound Downchild audiences all over the world want to hear. Forty–four years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment since he formed the Downchild Blues Band — Canada's best known and best loved blues outfit — Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the mid–1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It's a moment Walsh — he also answers to his "given" name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II — says he will never forget. "That was it. I was hooked. I never wanted to play anything else." He drove his girlfriend crazy learning Reed's lip–splitting harmonica technique, then James Cotton's. He locked himself away from the world while he picked apart Muddy Waters' and Albert King's guitar licks, reconstructing them in his own inimitable style on a beat–up electric guitar. And when he did venture out, it was to one of Toronto's legendary blues dives to catch his heroes Luther Allison, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, all of them regular visitors in those days to Walsh's hometown of Toronto, Canada's blues capital. Walsh was a good student. He is recognized around the world as both a blues harp virtuoso with few equals, and an unusually expressive guitarist. He wasn't the only one, of course. They say Toronto is built on the blues, but all across Canada the blues, particularly jump–style and Chicago blues that used to blast across the border from radio stations in northern U.S., is a basic, shared language. Singer Chuck Jackson, tenor sax player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick, bassist Gary Kendall, and pianist/organist Michael Fonfara — Walsh's compadres in Downchild for the past decade and a half, and, he says, the "best musicians I've ever played with" — were soaking up the blues in their teenage years as well, in different parts of the country. Downchild’s 17th album, Can You Hear the Music, dropped October 29, 2013, on the Canadian independent label Linus Entertainment. The album is both distinctly Downchild and proudly Canadian, right down to its cover art, which features the iconic Sam The Record Man sign from the landmark Toronto record store on Yonge Street.

The Downchild Blues Band
Headlining Centennial Square June 26, 2016. Can You Hear The Music starts the way all things Downchild should: with the jump–blues sound that makes you want to jump up and dance. And, as band leader Donnie Walsh will tell you himself, that’s the sound Downchild audiences all over the world want to hear. Forty–four years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment since he formed the Downchild Blues Band — Canada's best known and best loved blues outfit — Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the mid–1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It's a moment Walsh — he also answers to his "given" name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II — says he will never forget. "That was it. I was hooked. I never wanted to play anything else." He drove his girlfriend crazy learning Reed's lip–splitting harmonica technique, then James Cotton's. He locked himself away from the world while he picked apart Muddy Waters' and Albert King's guitar licks, reconstructing them in his own inimitable style on a beat–up electric guitar. And when he did venture out, it was to one of Toronto's legendary blues dives to catch his heroes Luther Allison, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, all of them regular visitors in those days to Walsh's hometown of Toronto, Canada's blues capital. Walsh was a good student. He is recognized around the world as both a blues harp virtuoso with few equals, and an unusually expressive guitarist. He wasn't the only one, of course. They say Toronto is built on the blues, but all across Canada the blues, particularly jump–style and Chicago blues that used to blast across the border from radio stations in northern U.S., is a basic, shared language. Singer Chuck Jackson, tenor sax player Pat Carey, drummer Mike Fitzpatrick, bassist Gary Kendall, and pianist/organist Michael Fonfara — Walsh's compadres in Downchild for the past decade and a half, and, he says, the "best musicians I've ever played with" — were soaking up the blues in their teenage years as well, in different parts of the country. Downchild’s 17th album, Can You Hear the Music, dropped October 29, 2013, on the Canadian independent label Linus Entertainment. The album is both distinctly Downchild and proudly Canadian, right down to its cover art, which features the iconic Sam The Record Man sign from the landmark Toronto record store on Yonge Street.

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