11 years already that blues floats over Carleton…
7 years already that the actual team joined the festival …
4 years already that the idea simmers on the back burner …

It’s now a done deal: Carleton’s Maximum Blues and Clarksdale’s Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival decided of a common accord to join forces in order to create a cultural exchange bridge between Gaspésie and the Mississipi Delta.

So it is with enthusiasm that the whole Maximum Blues Festival organization links itself with the Mississippi Delta area which witnessed the birth of this people’s music. The Maximum Blues Corporation thusly fulfills one mission of its charter which is to encourage and favor in all forms the emergence of local and regional artists.

While rejoycing from this Sistering, we are happy to report that the test period of our project incited supporters via their own interests.

En même temps que nous nous réjouissons de ce jumelage, nous sommes heureux d’annoncer que la période de mise à l’épreuve de notre projet a sucité des adhérents de par leurs intérêts propres.

As a matter of fact, we are pleased to announce that Bonaventure’s Musée acadien du Québec, a recent Maximum Blues partner, has undergone a Sistering with Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum, the organization overseeing the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel festival. The goal of this Sistering is to elaborate common museum related project in order to share the culture of their relative communities, exchange information and experience relating to cultural heritage of the areas encompassed by the partnership.

Live In Clarksdale 2004 CD

The rivers bring us together, the history of oppressed peoples and the music made to ease their pain, the Senegambians over the middle passage, the Acadians down the Eastern Seaboard, the vison of a guy named Pierre and his howling wolf spirit, the Manitous watch over the world, wanbli the bald eagle. If you follow the Mississippi River north from Clarksdale, up to Cairo, Illinnois, take the left fork (the Middle Mississippi) and keep going north up to St. Louis, keep going along tannin-black waters of the Upper Mississippi, fork right up the Illinois River through Chicago, across Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Huron, Erie, finally Ontario, you will find yourself on the Fleuve St-Laurent, the St. Laurence Seaway. Paddle down the St-Laurent past Trois-Rvières, Rivière Trois-Pistoles, Rivière-du-Loup, finally go up the Rivière Ste-Anne over the Chic-Chocs Mountains (the northernmost extension of the mighty Appalachain Mountain Range), down the Rivière Cascapédia and into the Baie des Chaleurs, the Warm Bay, and there you will find yourself in the Lagoon of Carleton. During the first week of August, the blues which was born in the Mississippi Delta is shaking the mountains and making waves on the North Atlantic … Mr. Johnnie and the Wesley Jefferson band, the Riverman and Bottleneck. It’s a good thing to share our music, our stories, our fields, our waters. The kids need to know that they’re not alone in this thing called the blues. Our Québécois brothers have experienced the feelings of loosing your home, your family. When you loose everything, what do you turn to? Who can you trust? How long must this go on? Take me to the river, drop me in the water. Gonna lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside. If I was a Catfish. The blues and the rivers bring us together. Clarksdale and Carleton …

John Ruskey.

Content

1. Le loup
2. J’tiens l’volant, Chien volant (Éric Dion) 05:47
3. Hot Tamale Mama There’s Red Hot (Clifton Chenier) 03:55
4. You don’t love me (Willie Cobbs) 07:39
5. Forty Days, Forty Hights (Roth) 03:58
6. Ramblin Man (Hank Williams) 03:15
7. Oh Marie (Daniel Lanoie) 04:25
8. Banza Riverman (John Ruskey) 12:07
9. Blues Is Like A River (John Ruskey, Wesley Jefferson) 05:41
10. Shake Your Hips (Slim Harpo) 04:28
11. Les p’tits visages (Éric Dion) 04:10
12. Daddy, Daddy (John Ruskey) 05:24
13. Stop Breaking Down (Robert Johnson) 03:59
14. Sweet Home Chicago (Robert Johnson) 03:58
15. Conclusion du loup

We would like to thank Office Québec-Amérique pour la Jeunesse for their financial support.