Miss Angel sings the blues
Musician Mel Brown’s widow says inaugural festival does not reflect him
Mel Brown’s widow says the programming for the inaugural musical festival in his name is flawed.
Angel Blues Brown takes to the stage Sunday at TheMuseum for the closing show of the first Mel Brown Music Festival and Symposium.
“I would like to see, first and foremost, that it represents Mel Brown, not other people’s agendas, just the music because Mel was all about the music,” said Angel.
There are two other live acts scheduled at the weekend festival: Alysha Brilla at the K-W Jazz Room Friday night, and the Juno-winning hip-hop artist Haviah Mighty at the Kitchener Public Library’s main branch on Saturday. Mighty is the first woman to win best rap album at the Junos.
Organizers wanted the festival to showcase artists from racialized communities performing their own music. At the same time, a symposium at Wilfrid Laurier University will explore systemic racism in the music industry.
While named after Mel, the festival and symposium were always about the bigger canvas of antiBlack racism in the music industry, and not just Mel’s legacy.
Angel said she is grateful Mel is getting this attention 13 years after he died, but future festivals should include the living, breathing artists who represent his musical legacy — Shawn Kellerman, Steve Strongman and Julian Fauth.
That trio of award-winning Blues musicians were inspired, taught and mentored by Mel.
“They are Mel’s Canadians, they are Mel’s Canadian sons,” said Angel. “That’s just my opinion, whatever that means, apparently not much, but I think they should have been playing.”
For 20 years before his death in March 2009, Mel was one of the most beloved musicians in the region. He was a jazz-funk-blues-soul fusion master on the guitar who performed and recorded with a long list of famous acts including B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Bobby (Blue) Bland.
Mel led the house band at Pop the Gator from 1989-94, but stayed in Kitchener after the Queen Street South blues club closed.
Kellerman, Strongman and Fauth were teenagers then and played with Mel at weekly jam nights.
They went on to careers writing, recording and performing the blues around the world.
“You can’t love the man and not love his children, and those boys were sons to him. They felt like that and Mel felt like that,” said Angel.
“And I think whatever happens to celebrate Mel misses the mark if those guys are not front and centre,” said Angel.
The Mel Brown Music Festival and Symposium grew out of “Unzipped,” the Rolling Stones exhibit at TheMuseum, which recently closed after a successful run.
As part of that, David Marskell, TheMuseum’s executive director, wanted to see a statue of Mel created and placed in a high profile location in the city. TheMuseum donated $10,000 to the statue project, and another $40,000 has been raised already.
Abe Erb Brewing Company in Watelroo has created a Mel Brown lager with the guitar player’s image on the can. All proceeds from the sale of that lager will go toward the cost of the statue, estimated at $100,000.
Knowing that statues can be a political minefield, Marskell reached out to the Black community.
An advisory group is overseeing the statue and helped organize the festival to celebrate the music of Black artists, and the symposium to explore racism in the music industry.
The advisory group will soon begin looking for a Black sculptor to create the statue, and Angel will work with the artist.
“If it don’t look like Mel they can keep it, “said Angel. “I don’t want a piece of brass sitting somewhere and you have to read the plaque before you know it’s Mel Brown. I want people to be able to look at it and say, ‘That’s Mel.’ ”
When it’s done, the statue should be placed on Jubilee Drive in Victoria Park looking at The Boathouse, a live music venue Mel played in many times, said Angel.