It’s Christmas time here in Ottawa again!

What? Christmas in July?

Christmas time for Blues Junkies like me – it’s Ottawa Bluesfest time again…and even though the Festival gets bigger and more diverse each year, there are still some great blues moments I’ll be taking in.

One of those happened on Thursday evening when hometown heroes (and recent Juno award winners for Best Blues Album “To Behold” – a solid mix of rocking blues, soul and funky R&B that defines the MonkeyJunk sound) collaborated with New Orleans performer Johnny Sansone for a deep-fried blues set joined by the Texas Horns.

After some MonkeyJunk original songs to heat up the set, Johnny Sansone (a giant of a man by the way) joined them for a smoking rendition of “Corn Whiskey”.

If anyone doubted they were in for an authentic Southern blues experience despite the Northern roots of MonkeyJunk, those doubts were quickly erased. The crowd built and for another 1-hour we were treated to a heated exchange of blues guitar from Monkey Junk guitarist Tony D, funky base and soul from Steve Mariner and steady back-beat of drummer Matt Sobb.

You all know I’m all about blues guitar, but Johnny Sansone is perhaps one of the lesser known blues harp players (at least I haven’t heard as much about him as say Sugar Blue or the late Paul Butterfield or even Kim Wilson of the Fabulous T-Birds)

HINT – see that MonkeyJunk and Johnny will be playing together at Ottawa’s ultimate blues destination – The Rainbow Sunday July 8th – you will want to check that out if you can.

Here is a small taste of what we saw – if you get the chance to see either MonkeyJunk or Johnny Sansone – take that chance for sure.

Jeff