One Step Forward ~ Harpdog Brown
Get ready for the highly anticipated Official Worldwide Release of Harpdog Brown’s first dance video November 25th at 5:00 PM Pacific! His recently released album For Love & Money entered the Living Blues Radio Charts at #6 (May 2019) where it stayed for a couple of months and also remained the #1 album on the Roots Music Reports Canadian charts. It continues to get tremendous airplay.
“Blues is a beautiful celebration of our perfectly flawed lives. And that’s what ‘One Step Forward’ is really all about.” Said Harpdog recently.
About Harpdog Brown:
In November 2019, Harpdog received three Maple Blues Award nominations: Male Vocalist of the Year, Recording/Producezr of the Year (Steve Dawson Produced) and Harmonica Player of the Year. (Canadian fans can vote here…https://www.mapleblues.ca/register.asp.
The Maple Blues Awards are recognized as Canada’s premier blues event of the year recognizing outstanding achievements of talented blues artists from coast to coast to coast.
Harpdog Brown has grown a reputation as a real-deal purveyor of classic electric blues. Think of the old Chess Records and Sun Records of the late ’40s and early ‘50s. These days he’s been touring more and more as Harpdog Brown & the Uptown Blues Band – a vintage New Orleans Blues sound that is piano-driven and features spectacular horns, often including sax, trumpet, clarinet and trombone. Still a vintage vibe, just a different vintage. They perform mostly originals yet they often include great songs of the masters from that era. Think Louis Jordan, Satchmo, Sonny Boy Williamson, Wynonie Harris, even Duke Ellington. Audiences are raving about this new show!
He’s been called a Blues Evangelist, and that’s a very fitting moniker. “I speak the blues like it’s the truth, and it is”, he was recently quoted. “I do feel like I’m a servant of the people. A missionary if you will. Music can heal people if they pay attention to the messages in these songs.” He delivers those messages using the vintage sound whether it be with his lowdown classic blues band the Travelin’ Blues Show or with his Uptown Blues Band. Harpdog says “Blues has healing power. We help people forget about their issues of the moment and then they realize that we all have our issues, and that’s OK.”
Vancouver-based Harpdog Brown was born in Edmonton in 1962, an adopted child who has felt somewhat detached his whole life – “a lifelong battle of not feeling like I belonged. I feel like I was born for the circus, you know, born to travel. The blues tapped me on the shoulder years ago and said ‘this is where you belong, son’. So the blues became my circus and there’s no better way to travel than with a band!”
Harpdog Brown is a gifted vocalist and an imaginative harmonica player. Piano man Dave Webb has been working with Harpdog over the years and they share an intuition that only comes with many hours and miles shared on and off stage. Joseph Abbott (Clarinet/Alto Sax) is the newest and youngest addition to the band. Rounding out the band is Rick Jacobson from the state of Washington on the tubs.
Harpdog has won three consecutive Maple Blues Awards for Harmonica Player of the Year (2014/2015/2016), the Fraser Valley Music Award, has three consecutive Western Canadian Music Awards Nominations, a Juno Nomination and is the only Canadian to win the coveted Muddy Award. In 2016, he was nominated for 3 Maple Blues Awards (Harmonica Player, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year) for his latest release Travelin’ With The Blues.
Travelin’ With The Blues released in 2016 is still sitting in the top roots and blues charts and follows his Top 20 charting 2014 release What It Is (Roots Music Report International Blues Albums).
Harpdog has earned a reputation across North America as a blues evangelist and known as a purveyor of classic electric blues. These days he’s touring more and more as Harpdog Brown & the Uptown Blues Band – a vintage New Orleans Blues sound that is the focus of his upcoming album.
For Love & Money is the title track from Harpdog Brown’s new album. The album is produced by Juno award winner Steve Dawson and brings a whole new direction for Harpdog. It’s a fresh and vibrant new sound that’s totally upbeat. A little bit Chicago and a whole lot of New Orleans.