Blues in Winnipeg Prior to 1960

'Blues in Winnipeg Prior to 1960', an audio-visual journey, will be led by music historian Owen Clark at Aqua Books, on Thursday, March 24 from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.  Free!

Drummer Owen Clark was a young man when he performed the blues repertoire at Winnipeg's Chan’s Moon Room Cabaret every night with the Bernie Shaw Trio.

The blues came to Winnipeg with the traveling entertainers in the 1930s and 40s. By the 1940s and 50s, a steady stream of recordings had spread this music all over Canada. 

The big bands played the blues every night: Olie Wagner and his Knights of Harlem; The Len Pattenden Band at the Roseland Dance Gardens; Bill Moore and the Aristocrats of Syncopation at the Tarantella Dance Gardens. 

Vocalists Del Wagner, Wilf Harper and Ray St. Germain were singinging the blues. As were the vocal groups of the 1950s: The Swingtones, the Saints, The Shadows, and The Len Cariou Trio.