Dan Aykroyd performs with the Downchild Blues Band
‘I just urge any young guitar player or drummer or bass player, or anyone out there that’s playing today or who plays Guitar Hero or plays in the basement or anyone who wants to hear fine musicianship – these are going to be the nights to see it.” Dan Aykroyd is not only on the phone, he is on. He’s talking – no, preaching – about Canada’s durable blues band, Downchild. The Toronto-based group is marking its 40 years of making robust, leaping Chicago electric blues with a national tour that includes shows in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal hosted by the 57-year-old entertainer and winemaker, who (with John Belushi) based his popular Blues Brothers act on Downchild’s co-founding siblings.
Downchild’s singer Richard (Hock) Walsh died in 1999, but the guitarist and harmonica-tooting Donnie Walsh is still at the helm. “These are going to be special nights,” enthuses the ghost-busting comedic legend. “We’ve got James Cotton, we’ve got Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns, we’ve got Colin Linden.”
And we’ve got a blues-ed up Dan Aykroyd. CONTINUE READING >
