She will be bringing beloved local singer Mwansa Mwansa with her, who opened for her the last time and who soon joined her band, which has since toured all over the world.
“ We haven’t played there since 2016 and it was really really great because we found Mwansa Mwansa who opened for us. She joined the band soon after,” Martin recalled, taking a quick breather at home, having just returned from a successful European tour.
Their latest CD Run To Me has been nominated for Blues Album of the Year, up against luminaries like Colin James, Jack DeKeyser, Myles Goodwyn and Sue Foley.
In which case it really is just an honour to be nominated. They won’t be attending the Juno awards celebrations in London, Ontario.
“We’re not going to be there because we‘re touring out there,” Martin said, noting they will be in the middle of a tour of B.C. and Alberta.
She is pleased with the big band sound of the new record “ Run To Me,” which she released last April.
“ We didn’t have a very large budget for the last record ‘Send The Nightingale.’ We had a bigger budget for this one, so I wrote these songs with a big band sound in mind,” she said.
She will be bringing a seven piece band with her including guitarist Curtis Chaffey, Steve Adubofuor, Ian McKeown and keyboardist and saxophonist Andrew Moljgun , and back up singers Mwansa Mwansa and Sherie Marshall.
“ We had a lot more time. The horn section gives it a much fuller sound. They make it a lot more exciting,” she enthused.
She is also excited about her first Juno nomination.
“It’s exciting be nominated with veterans like Sue Foley, Colin James, Jack DeKeyser and Myles Goodwyn,” she said.
“It shows we’re doing something right, so we‘ll continue doing it because it is working and continue taking the music to the people,” she continued.
“Both albums have also been nominated for Maple Blues Awards too, but we haven”t won them either,” she said.
She is excited to return to the Geomatic attic.
“We’ll be playing two sets of music from the albums. We‘d like to get people dancing, but I don’t know if there‘s room. They can dance in the aisles,” she said.
She enjoyed an extensive tour of Europe with the full band.
“ I’ve never brought to full band over there before. But we played 46 shows in 54 days in 10 countries. So there wasn’t a lot of time for sightseeing. Be we had great audiences in Europe,” she said adding they will return to Europe in May.
“Sometime along the way we want to make some time to write new music, wither that or get better at writing in hotel rooms,” she said, adding they plan on writing in September and October, after playing several North American festivals including the Ottawa Blues Festival, with a plan to release another new CD in 2020.
“ It will also have a big band sound,” she said.
Tickets for Samantha Martin and delta Sugar are $30 in advance $35 at the door. The show begins at 8 p.m. sharp at the Geomatic Attic, Wednesday, March 27.
—By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
