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guitar, of course, you know, rock and roll was going strong at that time and in Canada here, a lot
of our blues came via the British Isles. Groups like The Yardbirds and such we were listening to
in the rock and roll kind of era. These guys started talking about their influences, The Animals

and The Stones, of course, and so a lot of us in Canada first started hearing about that, and then
I started connecting the dots to some of the early records we had when I was a kid growing up
– Louis Armstrong and some of the New Orleans people, and that started to connect the dots
forming between the guitar blues and the horn blues people, and it's always kind of been, I think,
part of my mix. But I did start up playing in family bands, playing old-timey music. You know
‘Five Foot Two’, ‘Darktown Strutters Ball’. All those old 30s, 40s and 50s kinds of things.

BiTS: I'm a great
lover of Jelly Roll
Morton from that
period that you're
talking about. Do
you have a
favourite musician
from around then?

TM: [Chuckles]
Well, there's, so
many, you know,
and boy, you
musicologists in
Britain are so deep
into it. I was
listening to some
of your earlier shows, and I was thinking, my goodness, you know, I've studied a lot about the

blues [laughing], but there's some names I was not recognising, and I really credit you with the
expansive nature of your history there with the Blues. I remember being a kid walking in front
of the TV set, when we got our first TV set, the Ed Sullivan Show was on, and the Count Basie
band played, and I remember stopping and almost, you know, mouth agape at what these guys
were playing. I didn't really know what it was, but, of course, it was the blues. You know, the
trumpet players and the Lester Youngs and the Coleman Hawkins and those people. They were
playing the blues and that's kind of the way that I hear music now. I like to hear the blues in
various things and it can be in a lot of different subgenres of music.

BiTS: I gather this album was put together during what I guess was a lockdown period in Canada.
Would that be right?

TM: Yes, you're absolutely correct. Bands weren't playing then, and I think a lot of people turned
introspective and did a lot of writing and came out with the COVID records and the same was
true for me.

BiTS: And you not only produced the album, and I see also from the back cover, engineered it
as well, but you wrote all the songs too?

TM: Yes. Typically in the previous albums, I always encouraged the guys in the band to write. I
really pressed them to write and usually got a tune from about half of them for most of the
previous albums. We didn't have that luxury on this one because we started off in Calgary

recording at my studio there and then my wife and I made a move out to Victoria on the coast,
and so I rebuilt my studio and finished the album bringing Marty out, the singer, and then using