He said goodbye, but he's coming back. Canada's blues-rock legend Colin James is sliding back into P.G. for an acoustic night on the Vanier Hall stage.
His Up Close & Personal Tour will also stop in Quesnel, Williams Lake and Terrace on his northern B.C. leg.
James, simply put, is the best Canada's ever had. In a nation that listens to the blues and produces a great cohort of blues players, none has achieved the international heights nor the sustained applause as has Colin James. (Yes, Lonnie Johnson and Long John Baldry had phenomenal impact on the entire blues genre, but in their countries of origin - USA and England, respectively - prior to their becoming Canadians.) And at 50 years of age, James is still young for the profession.
He roared into the national spotlight in 1988 with his self-titled album, a crack band, and slickly crafted songs that are still core in the genre today (highlights: Chicks Cars & The Third World War, Voodoo Thang, Why'd You Lie, and the pop-crossover hits Dreams Of Satin and Five Long Years). It sold more than 270,000 copies and is still selling.
He followed that up in 1990 with the touchstone album Sudden Stop. Again, more than half the package could have stood to be a single and many hits were on the list, like Keep On Loving Me Baby, the Bonnie Raitt duet Give It Up,
T For Trouble, Show Me, the moody title track, and the megahit Just Came Back To Say Goodbye with a bit of Robert Johnson's old Stones In My Passway cleverly imbedded in the introduction.
The singles blew up the radio that year, and the album cleaned up at the Juno Awards.
It's been non-stop since then, and often with strategic shifting of the creative gears. He will do a big band album, then an acoustic one, then inject rock elements, always moving and always hitting veins of audience support.
One of the biggest reasons for his ongoing success is his affable nature, which endears him to live audiences and his guitar skills. Even other blues greats tip their hats to the hard-practiced creative skills James possesses on the guitar.
A solo show with an acoustic emphasis will push both those elements to the front of the stage when he arrives on May 10. Tickets are on sale now at Studio 2880.
