Downchild Blues Band: The end of a legendary era
Canadian blues icons wound down their farewell tour in Hamilton, where they became the inaugural inductees into the Escarpment Blues Society Hall of Fame.
After 55 years of hitting the road, the Downchild Blues Band has conducted their farewell tour after deciding it’s time to give up live performing.
Downchild was founded in 1969 by Donnie “Mr. Downchild” Walsh and his brother Richard “Hock” Walsh. Over the years, multiple players have come and gone but the current band features accomplished veterans of the blues scene. Donnie Walsh, who is the lone original member, leads the band with harmonica and guitar. Lead vocals have been mastered by Chuck Jackson and he’s become the voice of the band. Members round out with Gary Kendall on bass, Jim Casson on drums, Pat Carey and Peter Jeffrey on horns, and Tyler Yarema on keys.
The farewell tour took the band on a nostalgic circuit to venues they have frequented in the past. The second-to-last stop took place in Hamilton at the Studio Theatre where an enthusiastic crowd welcome the band that has been hailed as the best in Canada. As a matter of fact, The Blues Brothers asserted that their act was based on Downchild.
The group has opened for B.B. King and Joe Cocker at Toronto’s Massey Hall. For their 50th anniversary, Dan Aykroyd, Paul Shaffer, and David Wilcox joined the band before a crowd of 45,000 people at the Toronto Jazz Festival.
Hamilton was the perfect venue to wind down the tour. Downchild rolled out a rousing set of fan-favourite songs from the band’s repertoire and Walsh and Jackson just killed it. The audience virtually swooned when they played their cover of “Flip Flop and Fly.”
The newly formed Escarpment Blues Society presented Walsh with a trophy, installing Downchild as the first-ever inductee into the Escarpment Blues Society Hall of Fame. EBS president Ken Wallis presented the trophy to Walsh and the audience gave the band an enthusiastic five-minute standing ovation.
It may be the end of the touring, but we’re fortunate to have a boatload of Downchild albums that we can listen to in the years to come.
