Cover photo © 2023 Laura Carbone

Since 2006, the Blackburn Brothers have become staples of the Toronto blues scene, crafting a sound that incorporates funk, jazz, and soul, with a strong blues foundation. The family’s ancestors originally came to Canada as escaped slaves through the Underground Railroad and the family boasts a decorated musical legacy. Their most recent album SoulFunkn’BLUES received 9 nominations for the Maples Blues awards and the group hopes to break out into greater popularity in the United States and beyond.

I spoke with the band about their most recent album, brotherhood, the evolution of the blues, and Canadian blues as a genre.

Jack Austin: What prompted you to record this most recent LP?

Cory Blackburn (drums, vocals): It has been a lot of time in between albums. So our previous album Brothers in This World was released in 2015. We were definitely getting a lot of pressure from our agents as well as our record label. Also, it was time for us to kind of get back on the radar.

Jack: As I was listening to the album, I heard a solid base of blues but also strong soul influences. How would you describe your sound– is the title of the album supposed to be a reflection of an eclectic playing style?

Brooke Blackburn (guitar): Yes. We’ve always played soul, funk, and blues in our gigs since the beginning, since the genesis of the band. We are in the blues market but we’ve always brought soul and r&b into that vibe with a funky, kind of thing. Blues has always been the foundation. We all grew up in different eras. So we all have our genres. Cory grew up with more hip hop. I grew up with more soul and funk.

And then with the blues, we all listened to the blues, all listened to BB King, we all listened to Champion Jack Dupree, we all listened to Ray Charles. We also listened to the Meters, Eddie Harris, and Les McCann and Herbie Hancock. So we have that jazz influence in our music, too. And I think that’s all sort of put into perspective, more in this record. It’s called SoulFunkn’BLUES because that’s who we are, take us or leave us. And people seem to dig it.

Everybody likes to dance. We bring a lot of energy in our live shows, and we bring a little bit of everything. We’ll do a funky tune and we’ll break it right down to a slow blues. We might even throw in something singer-songwriter-ish in the blues vein and then go on to something else. It all kind of works, it all flows. I find that a lot of bands these days are more eclectic than just straight ahead blues bands. They seem to be veering on the funk and the soul part of the blues. But it’s all blues.

Jack: How do you think your eclectic sound affects your audience?

Brooke: I think they get it. As Canadians, we are different (than American blues musicians). Toronto specifically is one of the most multicultural areas in the world. So we grew up with that multicultural background. Our family background comes from the US into Canada through the Underground Railroad. We put that background into our music.

Jack: How does this family history impact your identity? Do you try to incorporate it into your music?

Brooke: It is definitely our identity. My father’s mother’s family came in through the Underground Railroad and we’ve kind of grown up with that identity of my grandmother. We grew up as Black Canadians. We were told your heritage comes from the Underground Railroad. You were enslaved at one point and you came up North to freedom. So that’s a big part of who we are. We celebrate our emancipation every year on August 1, because Canadians were emancipated in 1834, whereas Americans were emancipated on Juneteenth, 1865. So we celebrate the August 1 weekend and play tunes like “Soul Brother” which talks about the 70’s feel.

Jack: So the blues, as you know, emerged in the Delta, emerged in the US and it has deep roots there. Do you feel you offer a different perspective being Canadian, being in Toronto? Would you consider Canadian blues a distinctive genre?

Robert Blackburn: I don’t know if it’s a distinct thing. We have a lot of different types of blues players in Canada. Blues is our foundation but we mix a lot of different types of music in, and you get that with a lot with other groups as well. I find a lot of groups to sort of try to mimic what previous blues players have done in the past. We’re not really about that. You can hear in our playing the influences but we’re more about who we are, and, and who we are at this time. We write a lot about the social conditions right now. And we do it in a storytelling fashion like the traditional blues. And the feel is blues, but as far as the Canadian sound, maybe Blackburn can define that— if they listen to us and say, “hey, that’s Canadian blues.” That’s up for the people to decide.

Brooke: There’s so many aspects of the Canadian blues sound because of the multicultural side of it, but also because of the Canadian focus. There is a singer songwriter aspect. Sometimes you don’t just tell the story in one, four, five progressions, sometimes you need a two, sometimes you need a flat three to a flat seven, back to one. And we have the Gaelic side of Canada. My mother is from Newfoundland. So you know, you have all these different aspects coming into the music, but the story that needs to be told is going to be old in a blues fashion. This is the evolution of the blues. And like Robert said, there’s a lot of bands here in Canada that are stretching the genre, but keeping the blues as their foundation. They add where they come from because it’s such a multicultural country.

Robert: I think that if the blues is gonna evolve or be around in 20 years, you’re gonna have to bring in other elements, other feelings, and just build on what you know and where you come from. If you’re adding a little bit of folk, if you’re adding a little bit of reggae, as long as that foundation is the blues, I think it’s all cool.

Jack: One of my favorite tracks was “Sister Rosa”, an anthem for the civil rights icon. What was the inspiration for that track?

Duane (organ, piano): It’s one of those songs originally done by the Neville Brothers. A few years back, we were doing shows with James Brown type groups, up tempo groups and we would perform this track. We have the same sort of background as the Neville Brothers. We wanted to give homage to the Neville Brothers because it’s such a great family band.

Jack: On a similar note, what does brotherhood mean to you, both as people and musicians working together?

Cory: Being siblings, it’s a deep rooted family connection. We’re very fortunate to have grown up in a household where our father was a musician. He had instruments available and we were allowed to t be free to experiment with music. It created a bond with us as siblings– it’s a special type. We all have our other interests outside of music but music is definitely a huge common ground. It’s a real deep brotherhood. It’s something we don’t take for granted. It’s like we are on a professional sports team together. It’s a kind of a team type of connection, but it goes a little bit further because we are brothers.

Jack: If you’ve played with, you know, non-family members, how does the vibe change? Is there a tangible difference?

Brooke: When you have a Blackburn on stage, people kind of know our groove. Even if they’re not part of the family, they play to our groove. They play their own groove, but they know our groove and adapt their playing to the way we play. Because we’re confident in what we do musically.

We also play with other musicians outside the family, like our bass player, Andrew Stewart, who tours with us. He comes from a gospel background, like the church gospel, the funky church. Whether it be funk or soul. So that brings another element to us. And our horn section with Neil Brathwaite and Ted Peters has a unique sound. Ted came from a marching band background on trombone, and Neil came from a jazz background. So we have all these different influences that come into our sound as the Blackburn Brothers, but the groove that we have is our signature style. It’s just the way we play.

We can groove like The Meters doing “Cissy Strut”. We can groove for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, man. We are that type of groove band- like Jimmy Smith, you know.

Robert: If there’s two Blackburn’s on the stage, out of you know, five guys, there definitely will be an influence there. I don’t know if it’s taking over the stage or anything like that, but it just tends to be that if there’s two Blackburn’s, three Blackburn’s it will sound like Blackburn Real quick.

Duane: The players that we are, we are soloists. We’ve all come from that school of jazz, blues, funk, and reggae–solo music. When we play live and we do ska and reggae people say “what is this?”, but they really dig it. We’re in a blues atmosphere or r&b atmosphere. We throw that in there. But it’s all about the group. The group is still there.

Jack: What are you most proud of achieving as a band?

Cory: Well, we just got nine nominations for the Maple blues awards. But I’m most proud of playing with my brothers. I don’t really care where we play or what we do. I’m proud when people dig what my younger brothers are doing. But also playing in the states man. We’re very proud to be a band from Toronto, a band from Canada.

Robert: I think what I’m most proud of actually is the longevity of the Blackburn Brothers and how we keep moving forward, never stale, never sticking in the past when it comes to writing. Always trying to innovate. Always trying to move forward and staying relevant.

Jack: What are the band’s plans for the future?

Cory: We’re very focused on touring. That’s the next big step. We put the work in to record together and release the album in September. We’re getting a lot of positive feedback and we’ve always said we really would like to see this music get out to the world, beyond Canada. We’re starting to get pretty well known across Canada,which is a beautiful thing. Canada is a big country and there’s still so much for us to see.

But we really are looking forward to playing in completely different countries. Europe is 100% on the radar. We have played a lot of clubs in Toronto over the years including a lot of the touristy areas of Toronto, (where) we get people coming in from all over the world. And we always seem to get a very strong engagement with folks that come in from Europe. Now it’s just a matter of time.

Jack: Have you faced any challenges as a band?

Brooke: There’s always a challenge. When you’re Canadian, it’s expensive to fly. It’s a very expensive venture and it’s even more expensive when you’re dealing with six people. You can go and play for free or play and then make enough money to cover your expenses. But we’re all adults. We all have families, and we all need to bring home money. And so it’s the music business. So I’d say logistics have been our biggest struggle. I think we’re gonna play music regardless of if we get paid for it. But we have families and we want to get stateside, we want to get to Europe.

Jack: What did the Maple Blues Award nominations mean for the band? What did it mean to get that recognition?

Robert: For me, it was a huge shocker. Because our last release Brothers in This World, I don’t believe we got any nominations on the record for that one. This record, it struck a chord with the nominating panel and there’s been quite a bit of traction in terms of reviews.We got nominated in a lot of different categories. We did the Montreal Jazz Festival and the reviews came back. It was just really positive. We really hope that it will be a stepping stone to the Junos. Eventually down the road we’d like to see ourselves Grammy nominated.

Jack: How did growing up in a musical family influence your development?

Brooke: I think we all kind of started playing with my dad (Bobby Dean Blackburn). My dad’s a piano player and organ player that has been playing in Toronto since around 1955. So I started playing with him when I was about 13 or 14. I started learning guitar around 13 and started playing with him when I was 14. Robert played sax with him before me. And then Cory started playing with him. Cory was young, probably,13 or 14 when he started playing at a club downtown called New Orleans Jazz Bar. Cory played with my dad every Sunday and then we played another bar, a place called Allison’s Restaurant.

Robert: I think growing up in a music family– my dad really brought us along and we got to meet a lot of great musicians through him who taught us a lot. Some of our greatest influences are big stars. Our dad would bring musicians home and they’d be playing piano and we’d just be glued, watching them. They would say, “Hey, you want to learn this?” We learned a lot, including guitar and keyboards from a lot of great great musicians that may be lesser known. I think by growing up in a family like that, you get a lot of opportunities. A lot of people want you to do well, and the musicians will help bring you up, get on their gigs. I used to have guys, my dad’s friends, who would call me for a gig. I would say “really?”. They would say “come on”, eager to help out.

Brooke: Our house was an open house to a lot of Americans that came into Canada that were basically getting away from the Vietnam War. So we housed them, learned from them, and took care of them. We had people from the South or from Virginia, from Chicago. I learned guitar from a guy from Chicago. So that probably influenced my blues. I’d say my dad, Bobby Dean Blackburn introduced us to a lot of players.

Jack: Why did you change your name from Blackburn to The Blackburn Brothers?

Brooke: People always called us “The Brothers” anyways. On this record we felt we might as well go as the Blackburn brothers. People would always say “the brothers are playing tonight” or “when are the brothers playing?”

Jack: How, how does this most recent album compare to your previous releases?

Brooke: Compared to previous albums, I believe the writing is a little more crossover. I find it has a little more of a rock feel to it. And that’s Robert’s influence obviously. And my cousin Nathan plays bass on it. His influence on bass gives it a different feel. He’s more of a group player, but he has a lot of melodic stuff he does. And I think that because it was over the pandemic we had a different atmosphere where we were isolated.

Cory: We also were doing a lot of playing between this release and the previous release. We had horns in mind and definitely wanted to capture that live sound on this record, the energy that we bring live.

Jack: Who were some of your greatest influences?

Duane: Well, for me, it was Bob Marley, Bobby Blue Band, James Brown, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Jimmy Smith, Oscar Peterson. All types of different funk, blues, r&b, jazz, and reggae all influenced my playing, my music. Like I said our foundation was the blues but you know, everything expanded from there.

Cory: Yeah, I’ll double up on James Brown. That’s always been a huge huge influence for me, Ray Charles, absolutely. As a drummer, I obviously love the Wailers and the deep pocket of reggae music. Oscar Peterson, I’ll throw him out there. A lot of people forget when it comes to blues music, the instrumental music. We grew up on a lot of instrumental blues music and for me, it’s a huge influence. Organ music like Jimmy Smith, is a huge influence for me.

Robert: All those guys. In the early days, Otis Redding. Al Green. Sam Cooke. That kind of stuff was what my early influences were. And then later on in life, James Brown, John Coltrane. Miles Davis, of course, all the funk bands from the 70s and 80s.

Brooke: I’d say the number one influence is my dad because I played with my dad– he was the first person I ever played with. All his friends used to come over and rehearse in our basement and left an impression.

As far as recorded music, Robert will attest to, when I was a kid we used to get these Atlantic recordings, compilations of Motown recordings. Robert and I would go down on Boxing Day and get these records– whether it be Bob Marley records or early Headhunters stuff, or Jimmy Smith or Les McCann. George Benson was huge in my growth as a guitar player, as was West Montgomery and Larry Carlton and BB King. Later on in life I got into Stevie Ray Vaughan. I didn’t really know much about Hendrix, but when I opened a clothing store, I got into the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Then later on the Kings –Albert King, Freddy King.

The multitude of musical influences is apparent in the Blackburn Brothers’ sound, both in the studio and live. The sound emanates energy and the connection between the band members is palpable. Blackburn are able to fuse a unique style while shifting like a musical chameleon at times, dipping into jazz and funk and soul, while resting on a solid core of blues.

The band almost exclusively toured in Canada in 2023 and hope to land gigs throughout the United States as 2024 approaches. You can read more about the band and purchase their music by visiting their website at http://www.blackburnbrothersmusic.com.