Reddick formed groundbreaking blues band The Sidemen in Toronto in 1990. The Sidemen released 3 albums of original material and spent a decade touring across Canada.

Paul Reddick + The Sidemen released the critically acclaimed Rattlebag in 2001. Produced by roots music authority Colin Linden, Rattlebag is a masterpiece of “hard blues for modern times”. Praise came in from both sides of the border, along with nominations at the W.C. Handy Awards and the Juno Awards. The band also won three Maple Blues Awards in early 2002, including Songwriter of the Year and Album of the Year. Paul Reddick + The Sidemen toured the US non-stop from 2002-2004.

Rattlebag marked the beginning of Reddick’s serious attempt to re-work blues traditions with an emphasis on poetic forms and techniques. Starting at the beginning with the Alan Lomax Field Recordings, and reaching into the vast body of pre-war music in and beyond that of the type documented in Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Reddick has sought to combine the mystery of the blues artform with the powerful spell cast by poetry.

A musician who loses himself in performance, Paul Reddick lures the audience into that half-lit blue world he knows so well. A storyteller, innovator and highly original harmonica-player/vocalist, his performances are unforgettable.

Paul Reddick teamed up once again with Colin Linden to release Villanelle in autumn 2004. This widely acclaimed album continues the Rattlebag journey towards re-styling the traditional; sidestepping convention it searches further for new possibilities in blues music.

Paul Reddick - Bio (www.northernblues.com)

Paul turned out to be also a fine talker.

Talking, mostly about the blues, about the bleak land of the central part of the Mississippi Delta–the place where, in railroad lore “the Southern cross the yellow dog”–and whence came Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Charlie Patton, Son House, Bukka White and so many other great bluesmen, Paul also spoke of his great love of rural blues played outside recording studios in the ’20s and ’30s.

I told him stories I’d heard about Muddy Waters. He laughed at the stories, and we talked of some of our favourite bluesmen, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sleepy John Estes, Barbeque Bob, and Arthur “Blind” Blake.

There is something about Paul that astonishes me, however. That he didn’t know who The Rolling Stones were until he was 18. He never listened to rock and roll while growing up. He didn’t even listen to radio. You see, the blues dropped him like a shot when he was 12.

Wonder as this is, it is more of a wonder when you know that Paul grew up in the village of Lakefield, Ontario (14 km north of Peterborough), especially if you happen to know what Lakefield, Ontario is about. It is where a local fundamentalist Christian group succeeded in briefly removing resident Margaret Laurence’s book “The Diviners” as course material from the local secondary school in the ’70s.

Most of Paul’s cultural life there was centered around listening to blue records. When he was 13, his brother went to Toronto with $100 Paul gave him and with instructions to bring home whatever blues record-ings he could from the Sam the Record Man store on Yonge Street.

Paul spent his high school years earnestly studying recordings by such blues masters as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, “Little Walter” Jacobs, Big Walter “Shakey” Horton, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, as well as recordings by more contemporary blues acts as The Downchild Blues Band, and The Siegel-Schwall Band.

Only years later would Paul delve deeply into pre-war acoustic American blues, through various Yazoo Record collections, and the Alan Lomax Collection recordings.

Paul formed The Sidemen in Toronto in 1990, recording the albums “The Sidemen” (1992), “When The Sun Goes Down” (1995), “Dig In (1999), and “Rattlebag” in 2001.

The latter was produced by Toronto singer/guitarist/producer Colin Linden. Its success resulted in two years of intensive U.S. touring for Paul with varied lineups of The Sidemen, and nominations at the W.C. Handy Awards, and Canada’s Juno Awards.

While digging through his catalog for this album, Paul discovered two previously unreleased gems from his early days with The Sidemen: A version of Little’s Walter’s “It Ain’t Right” and the original song “Sidemen Boogie.” As he told me, “These songs are fast and energetic and show what the band was like when we were young.”

Paul again teamed up with Linden for the acoustic-based “Villanelle” in 2004. This remarkable album evolved at Linden’s Nashville home, as the two close friends talked, played licks back-and-forth, and im-provised songs. The performances, informally recorded, are uncon-scious and beautiful. The subterranean force of Paul’s voice and harp work are captured with haunting clarity, and Linden’s moody fret-work sounds as if the strings are sliding off the guitar.

There are 18 tracks on “Revue: The Best of Paul Reddick,” culled from Paul’s recordings with The Sidemen; from “Villanelle” and from outside projects, including with The Rhythm & Truth Brass Band. It is clear that Paul with a strong lyrical prowess—and whether co-writing with Linden, jazz pianist Paul Neufeld or The Sidemen’s Kyle Ferguson – has partially used structures of pre-war and post war urban blues to forge his own image-driven, and expressive sound.

It is an imaginary blues world teeming with romance, solitude, travel, and nocturnal mystery. And it gets you right away.

No wonder that Paul’s songs have been used in such feature films as “Two if By Sea,” Triggermen,” “Niagara Motel,” and “The Evil Knievel Story”; and the television series’ “Due South,” “Dawson’s Creek,” “15 Love,” and “Madison.” In 2006, Coca Cola Classic, of course, used the lead-off track “I’m A Criminal” for a U.S. commercial.

“Revue: The Best of Paul Reddick” vividly shows that over two decades Paul has been making some of the most consistent, daring and express-ive music by any artist in any genre. A rugged individualist, he works in a sacred high atmosphere where honest music lives and breathes, and where the less talented have to gasp for air.

LERRY LEBLANC
CANADIAN BUREAU CHIEF, BILLBOARD