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Artist
Downchild Blues Band
12+ albums
bluesblues rockCanadianclassic rockrock
about
The Downchild Blues Band is a Canadian blues band, described by one reviewer as "the premier blues band in Canada". The band was formed in Toronto in 1969 and still performs today. The band's international fame is partially due to three of its songs, the originals I've Got Everything I Need (Almost) and Shot Gun Blues, and its adaptation of Flip Flop and Fly, all from its 1973 album, Straight Up, being featured on the first Blues Brothers album, Briefcase Full of Blues (1978). The band's musical style is described as being "a spirited, if fundamental, brand of jump-band and Chicago-style blues". Donnie Walsh thinks a hat might make a difference. “Something that will help the band fit in … or stand out,” says the veteran Canadian bluesman by way of explaining the title of the new Downchild album, I Need A Hat. It’s a joke, of course. Downchild doesn’t need a hat, or a ticket, a tag, a bag, a niche, or a flashing neon sign. Forty years on, Downchild remains a blues force, true to itself and without equal. For just about every waking moment of the four decades since he formed the Downchild Blues Band – Canada’s best known and best loved blues outfit – Walsh has been living the dream that changed his life back in the early 1960s, when someone dropped a Jimmy Reed album onto the turntable at his girlfriend’s 16th birthday party in suburban North Toronto. It’s a moment Walsh – he also answers to his “given” name, Mr. Downchild, taken from a song by Sonny Boy Williamson II – s
