STONY PLAIN NEWSLETTER #51 - FEB. 10/09 [EXCERPTED]

Nominations and Awards for Stony Plain Artists

Stony Plain scored three out of the five nominations for the "Blues Album of the Year" category of the 2009 Juno Awards. The winner will be announced at a gala event in Vancouver on Saturday, March 28, as part of the Juno Awards weekend.

The Stony Plain releases nominated for Juno Awards — the Canadian equivalent of the Grammies — were:

Get Way Back: A Tribute to Percy Mayfield — Amos Garrett
Acoustic Blues: Got 'em From the Bottom — Big Dave McLean
Mess of Blues — Jeff Healey

The two other nominees in the category are the independently-released Love & Sound by a previous Juno winner, Nova Scotia guitarist Garrett Mason, and Ramblin' Son by pianist/singer Julian Fauth on Toronto's Electro-Fi label.

The Jeff Healey CD was released shortly after the guitarist died last March. The artist, the album, and his sidemen earned no less than seven Maple Blues Awards last month, and the album is nominated in the Rock Blues category of the Blues Awards, being held in Memphis Tennessee on May 7.

Mess of Blues earned Best Blues Album honours at the Independent Music Awards in the U.S. last month.

Introducing Sunny and Her Joy Boys:
Classic jazz and songs from the golden age of pop

Introducing Sunny and Her Joy Boys is the brainchild of Stony Plain's award-winning guitarist and producer Duke Robillard, and it marks the remarkable voice of Sunny Crownover, whose beautiful interpretations of tunes from the great American songbook are nothing less than a revelation.

Introducing Sunny and Her Joy Boys will be released by Stony Plain in Canada and the U.S. on March 24.

The latest of many eclectic and wildly different projects Robillard has brought to Stony Plain, it's also the first that's featured a woman singer, and a band of classic jazz players — and one without a drummer.

Now based in New England, Crownover spent a large part of her life in Texas. Robillard heard her sing for the first time in late 2007 at a Harvard University concert and knew he'd found the voice he was looking for to bring a project to life he'd been wanting to do for over 35 years.

The CD salutes the golden era of women vocalists of the '20s through the '50s, where big bands and small combos alike created classic American pop, swing and blues songs of the day.

Robillard says he's wanted to cover this sort of classic jazz for 35 years. "I'm really fond of the swing-era female vocalists, and tunes from the Depression Era, Tin Pan Alley tunes and tunes by the great writers. Until now, I never found the right vocalist."

Robillard assembled a small all-acoustic group to provide sympathetic backing to Crownover's voice, with Billy Novick on clarinet and alto saxophone, Duke and Paul Kalesnikow on arch top guitars and Jesse Williams on acoustic bass. Many of the tracks were done in a single take, a testament to the chemistry between the singer and band.

Some of the album's many highlights are the opener, "Strictly from Dixie," originally popularized by Ella Fitzgerald; Walter Donaldson's "You're Driving Me Crazy;" the bluesy ballad "That's My Desire;" and the classic "Between the Devil and the Deep Blues Sea."

Listen, too, to the gorgeous Ellington/Strayhorn composition, "I Don't Mind;" Billy Holiday's "Travelin' All Alone;" the seminal Duke Ellington ballad, "I Got It Bad (and that Ain't Good);" and another great Chick Webb/Ella Fitzgerald hit, "Undecided."

"I'm ecstatic that I'm getting to play this music", Robillard says, "with the right sound — nice and light, but the music is very rhythmic."

So, from a 35-year itch to a band to a record in four months? Is that about it? Says Robillard: "When things are right, they're right." Expect major play for Sunny and Her Joy Boys on jazz stations and major support from jazz-based publications.

Why not watch the video to "You're My Thrill" by Sunny And Her Joy Boys?

Listen to clips and pre-order the album "Introducing Sunny And Her Joy Boys" from stonyplainrecords.com


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