“Probably the most persistent and enthusiastic requests from my fans for anything outside of the blues genre has been the repeated calls to record a Bob Dylan tribute. As with all my recordings, the songs that move me the most deeply, touching heart and soul, are the ones I choose to record.” -- Rory Block 

Taking a break from her award-winning Power Women of The Blues series, which has shone a light on women songwriters and performers over her three most recent albums, Rory Block throws her skills as a fingerpicker and traditional blues arranger behind one of the greatly respected leading artists and songwriter of all-time: Bob Dylan. Performing all instruments herself, Rory combines acoustic and slide guitars, as well as drums and acoustic bass, to create a one-of-a kind arrangement of Dylan’s songbook.

Today, Block releases her full, 20-minute video of Bob Dylan's epic "Murder Most Foul,” commemorating the 4^th-anniversary of Dylan's seminal album ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ from her forthcoming album, ‘Positively 4^th Street, ‘out on June 28 through Stony Plain Records.

For the first time ever, Centre In The Square is thrilled to welcome world-renowned guitarist and composer Pat Metheny to its stage this November. With an astonishing career spanning nearly 50 years, Metheny is a 20-time Grammy Award winner and the only musician to have won in an unprecedented 10 categories. His accolades also include three gold albums, marking him as one of the most celebrated figures in jazz and contemporary music.

Pat Metheny’s performance promises to be a one-of-a-kind musical experience. With more than a dozen guitars at his side, he will present compositions from across his storied career, including selections from his latest albums, Dream Box and MoonDial. Fans can also expect a unique personal touch as Metheny shares engaging and entertaining stories from his life and musical journey, adding another layer of depth to an already extraordinary evening.

If you’ve ever felt you were on the outside looking in, Nancy Hope sees you. In fact, she’s even written a song for you. On her new single, “Sidelines,” the 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Stoney Creek, Ontario, captures the transformative moment at which someone who’s let herself skulk in the shadows for too long decides to step into the light.

“Sidelines, I know that’s where I hide/ To let everyone shine but not me,” she croons, over a plaintive piano melody that pulls straight at the heartstrings. “Fantasize about what it’d be like/ To be in the centre for the world to see.”

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/1XDbM70gsRSyAHETwsfpcA

The fantasy becomes reality as the track swells into full-on power-ballad mode, with Hope’s impassioned delivery matching her resolve that the time to make her move is now:

As a tribute to the students at Columbia University who have been protesting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ottawa-based singer/songwriter Christophe Elie has penned the new single “Columbia.” The song is in support of those calling for a ceasefire and the separation of the university from arms manufacturers and the war industry.

Elie has followed the Israeli Palestinian struggle. His interest in world affairs stems from his mother who was arrested in the Civil Rights movement of the ’60s. “She is my main source of context and inspiration,” he says.

 Seeing a parallel between the Columbia protests and the courageous activism of the ’60s, Elie penned the folky, introspective tune with the chorus of Columbia /The conscience of the people /Columbia/ The students’ cry for peace.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/album/4e1DFfipa3RWdDGNzqJ0PO

It’s tempting to say that when you’re passing from your teens into your 20s, all you know is the present. But Ally Cribb’s haunting “Now” is far more world-wise than that oversimplification and the song’s own deceptively simple title—might suggest. With an eagle-eyed perception that would be enviable at any age, the Toronto-born, Halifax-based singer-songwriter describes the feeling of exiting a relationship (and, by extension, an entire era of your life) that your brain knows you have to put behind you, even though your heart may be slow to get the message.

No offense to contemporary country, but to the true, dyed-in-the-wool connoisseur, nothing beats the original formula. And Rick Marshall is nothing if not a connoisseur, as he proves on his heartfelt—and, not incidentally, utterly butt-kicking—tribute track, “Classic Country (Rocks My World).”

In a tight three minutes and 12 seconds, Marshall namechecks 33 of the music’s immortal giants, from Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to Kris Kristofferson, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette. Against the backdrop of an appropriately thwacking snare drum and a swooping slide guitar, he makes it clear that when you’re riding with him, you’re riding with the masters: 

Renowned for her infectious positivity and radiance, indie songstress Moonlyn is on the sole mission to spread joy through her music. With the release of her latest single “Here & Now,” Moonlyn is preparing to release her new full-length album Possessed by Angels on October 17. Her third studio album marks her latest record release since her 2010 album Blondes Prefer Gentlemen.

Her upcoming album is an incredibly vulnerable release, as it began to take shape at a dark point of Moonlyn’s life. After undergoing a serious cancer diagnosis and surgery during lockdown in 2020, she began to work on Possessed by Angels as a way to find light within the darkness.

Most often in country music lyrics, the idea of a "happily ever after" conclusion is more of the exception rather than the norm. Now North Vancouver-based singer Mary Garnett Edwards has penned a dark, tragic country roots tale in "Golden Eyed Boy," a single packing a punch both lyrically and musically. Garnett Edwards, accompanied by a who's who of supporting musicians, spins a story that is simultaneously haunting, harrowing, and heartfelt.

The adage about time is that it remains undefeated. Everyone has to go at some point. But with today's musical landscape, artists continue to defy Father Time (and the Grim Reaper) by performing well into their sixties, seventies and beyond. From the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, age is just a number. And Oshawa-based blues rock artist Mark Wihlidal and producer/guitarist Chris Birkett are taking that idea to the masses with the great, engrossing single "One More Time."

Before the Bee Gees were ha ha ha Stayin’ Alive as ’70s disco kings, they actually had a psychedelic period in the late ’60s that was equally brilliant and intriguing. 

Manchester-based singer-songwriter Luna Collins, and duo Strangers In A Strange Land, pay tribute to this period in the career of the brothers Gibb with a cover of their 1968 song “Lemons Never Forget.” 

The song is very Beatles-esque, and it originally appeared on the Bee Gees’ second UK album Horizontal. This Bee Gees’ era is one of Collins’ favorites, and it’s expertly captured in this current iteration by these musical colleagues that include Vince Melouney as lead guitarist. 

After their last single, ‘You Should Know’ (I-94 Recordings, 2022) The Looks are back with a brand new track, ‘Meet Me On the Floor’ which hits the streets on August 23rd. 

The band hasn’t been able to do their usual brand of extensive touring since 2019, and was getting restless. “Honestly, we were sick of not touring,” says Laj. “We miss it and the road is where we belong.”

There are two ways you can approach nostalgia: You can either reject it as a seductive illusion, or you can concede that it may have a point. Fredericton, NB, alt-rocker Kylie Fox opts for a little of both on her new double-A-sided single, “Confetti/Alberta,” which offers a pair of distinct yet complementary visions of yesterday.

A jaunty, jocular “no” to the specters of the past, “Confetti” finds Fox fielding the sudden, unexpected entreaties of an old boyfriend who had dropped her like a hot potato after deciding there might be more opportunities for “glitter on [his] sleeve” without her around—but who is now having second thoughts:

2024 MusicNL Award Winner for Fans Choice Entertainer of the Year

 You bought the tickets months ago. Stood in line to get in. Waited for the opening act to finish their set. Now, at last, the band or musician you waited for is playing that hit single or deep cut that definitely made all the time, cash and travel invested worth it. Now Newfoundland and Labrador Mi'kmaq country sensation Jason Benoit nails that feeling with the impressive single "I Wanna Hear That Song."

Even if a guy has given his life to the blues, there are times when he just can’t resist the primal urge to rock out. Especially when his friends are there to egg him on. That’s where David Gogo finds himself on his new album, YEAH!—a dizzying compendium of career bests that pulses with the kind of energy that only comes from just the right combination of commitment and camaraderie.

Song like “One More Day” and “Moose Hall Brawl” have the raw, zealous abandon of a boys’ night out. And that’s the kind of prospect that gets all the more inviting when your boys happen to be some of the greatest players on the Canadian blues scene. Leadoff track “Diamond In The Rough” sets the tone in no uncertain terms, absolutely storming out of the gate with a fiery declaration of passion both musical and lyrical:

Cinzia Moniaci didn’t need Judy Garland to teach her there’s no place like home. Check out “Rome”—the latest single from her band, Cinzia and the Perfect Nines—on which the Italian-born L.A. transplant imparts the thrill of waking up to find herself in “the city alive,” with the “beauty all around” signaling she has landed in Paradise itself. And when the irresistible chorus hits, her nativist joy explodes into the kind of full-on boosterism that could land her a job with the tourism board:
Rome
Opening my mind
Coloring my soul
With its beauty never-ending
Always trending
Wakes me up inside
Makes me feel alive
And I can’t believe I get to call her home

JUNO Award winning, British Columbia-based Indie Blues duo A.W. Cardinal and Jasmine Colette, best known as Blue Moon Marquee, made huge strides with their highly lauded, critically acclaimed, award-winning album Scream, Holler & Howl. Now the energetic, high-octane tandem are back with a rollicking batch of ridiculously lively toe-tapping originals and covers with New Orleans Sessions.

Everybody needs a good cry once in a while. And if you’re really hardcore, you cry blood.

 Anoxia are very hardcore. On their “Tears, I Bleed,” powerhouse vocalist Chrystal James and her crew don’t just shed a few drops of type O negative from their ducts: They rain down a torrent of eye plasma that proves why they’re the pride of Baltimore’s post-industrial metal scene.

The song rams home its aggressively wounded sentiments with a piledriving, mechanistic feel that’s elevated by immaculate orchestration and arrangement. The key is James’ astounding voice, which segues effortlessly from a throaty moan to an operatic soar as she takes stock of a love affair that’s left nothing but devastation in its wake:

Three singles in, and Aline Garza can already lay a claim to being one of pop’s reigning queen of empowerment. Her January 2024 debut, “Day One,” was an ode to the fortifying nature of true friendship that became an instant classic, racking up 4.1 million views on Tik Tok and over 4 million on Instagram. She followed it up with the equally stirring “Superhero,” which put her squarely at the forefront of the anti-bullying movement. Now, with her new “Warrior,” the Austin, Texas, wunderkind draws an even keener bead on motivational guru-dom, treating the listening world to a priceless anthem that teaches the power of simple self-confidence to surmount the most overwhelming odds.

Events in one's life can be recalled vividly regardless of the distance from when it first happened. Ideally, one ends up with more pleasant, happy recollections than tragic ones, but tragic ones are also part of life. For The All Canadian Soundclash's vocalist Andrew Michelin, the gorgeous lead single "Tired" from the group's new four-song EP Nashville was inspired by a friend who was killed by a drunk driver when Michelin was in his early twenties.

"I wrote the song in about ten minutes when I was twenty-one sometime after my friend's funeral," Michelin, the lead vocalist of the Ottawa-based roots rock group, says. "It's only now that I had the chance to have it professionally recorded. I think my friend Heather is looking down on me. Proud of the song."

Forty-four years ago, they declared The Kings Are Here. Now Canada’s cherished rock legends are specifying exactly where “here” is: on the charts and rising.

This week, The Kings’ ridiculously compelling “Nowhere to Go But Gone” climbs to #42 on the Mediabase CHR Activator list—a nigh-on-miraculous showing for a Canadian classic-rock band on US radio. It’s a designation that shows the tune continues to spread like wildfire, receiving airplay in markets from Utah to Florida to Cape Cod. If this keeps up, the group might have to issue an official clarification that the title of their documentary, Anatomy of a One-Hit Wonder, was meant with tongue planted firmly in cheek.