Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Washington returns to P.G. with new album

One of northern B.C.'s sweetest migratory songbirds is flying home for the winter. Maureen Washington is all-Prince George but she has become one of Victoria's leading voices in jazz and blues in recent years since she moved south.
EXTRAmaureen-washington.08_.jpg
Maureen Washington is seen in an undated handout photo.

One of northern B.C.'s sweetest migratory songbirds is flying home for the winter.

Maureen Washington is all-Prince George but she has become one of Victoria's leading voices in jazz and blues in recent years since she moved south.

She's made regular trips back to her hometown for triumphant concert appearances but there is always a tantalizing space of time. Local audiences haven't seen her here since her sold-out triple bill with Midnight Blue and Jaclyn Guillou at last year's Coldsnap Music Festival. Now she has announced she is coming for an encore this winter, once again at the Prince George Playhouse.

She is coming with a heavy load in her arms.

Her latest album is entitled Harvest Moon and it is above and beyond a song package with local scope. This is not a Maureen Washington demo tape; this is the kind of album that signals "I'm going for a Juno Award."

That's the level of conversation Washington has earned over her career. She had eight albums before she went to work on this one. She posted her name in lights by winning the 2014 Black Canadian Award's Best Jazz and Soul Artist.

She added that to her multiple nominations for the Vancouver Island Music Awards, including major categories like Best Live Act and Female Vocalist of the Year.

Never mind the who's who she has shared the performance stage with at festivals and music events, she has worked directly with the likes of Miles Black, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Valdy, Ruthie Foster, The Lee Boys, Amy Millan, and other notables. Harvest Moon was constructed with that kind of background in mind. She wanted an album that reflected her hard-earned station in the Canadian music industry.

To achieve this new platform she turned to a friend in Victoria who happens to also be one of Canada's great music producers. She convinced studio wizard Joby Baker (Mae Moore, Rachelle Van Zanten, Alex Cuba Band, etc.) to be the quarterback for this project.

The new package of songs is a set of cover songs anchored by a chilling, thrilling version of Neil Young's graceful hit Harvest Moon as the title track.

The album contains a lot of surprises (Bette Davis Eyes, the Bee Gees hit To Love Somebody, Bob Marley's Waiting In Vain, etc.) that are broken into barely recognizable pieces and reassembled in Washingtonian form.

These are interspersed with wheelhouse numbers from the blues-soul catalogue like St. James Infirmary, Strange Fruit, You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman, God Bless The Child and other standards of the genre.

There is one exception to the cover rule. Wait A Little Longer was co-writen between Washington and Daniel Cook - another former Prince George resident living in Victoria - and stands as an ode to her late husband Darryl Schultz who passed away from cancer a little more than a year ago.

That and Harvest Moon were Schultz's favourites when his wife performed.

"I cried hysterically through both songs, and Joby, he wanted that, the full emotional impact," said Washington about the recording of these two songs that bookend the album.

To experience the Harvest Moon in the skies within the P.G. Playhouse, book your tickets for Jan. 27 at 8 p.m.

Her band will include Karel Roessingh, Joey Smith, Calvin Washington and Shawn Smith.

Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door, setting up a stocking stuffer opportunity for the jazz-blues fans in your household.

Tickets are on sale now at Studio 2880 (2880 15th Ave.)