JUNO nominated and Maple Blues Award winner Spencer MacKenzie has just dropped his third single from his forth coming album Empty Chairs, which coincidentally was produced mixed and engineered by Ross Hayes Citrullo guitarist from The Commoners whose single I have also just reviewed. Busy boy. A JUNO award is a Canadian music industry award considered the equivalent to a Grammy.

This single is about, and in memory of the children who went to residential schools in Canada. As a Brit you may think what is a residential school. Well it’s not a boarding school as we have in the UK.

Residential schools were run from the 1830’s to the late 1990’s and they were run mainly by the catholic church, and meagrely funded by the government. They forcibly removed indigenous children from their families, taking them many miles away to discourage family contact.

Once in the schools they weren’t allowed to speak their own language, and were subjected to severe punishments, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and with dreadful sanitary conditions were likely to succumb to diseases such as TB.

Apparently with new technology they founds literally hundreds of bodies in unmarked graves littering the grounds of these schools. So good on you Spencer, what a noble thing to do through your music.

And lets get to the music after that bit of outrage. It reminds me of Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac. Not a bad place to start for a young blues player, but he hasn’t really started there.

This is his third single from his third album, and despite only being 26 years old, he has been writing blues songs for over a decade. So refreshing to know that there is a new generation of players taking this genre forward, and with such passion. And he is doing it in a way which is taking the whole blues formula forward, one foot in the past, and one in the future, to keep the listener engaged.

Although I haven’t heard the anticipated album I have seen a description of the songs, and he is no ordinary blues lyric writer, as is the case with this Frozen Hearts single.

The boy has a social conscience and he is using his platform to bring his concerns to the world, but not in an overtly political way. He does write relationship songs of course, any good blues player always has a girl or two done him wrong, but Spencer has them doing him wrong in interesting lyrical ways

The more I hear his guitar playing and songs the more I am welcoming him like an old friend. A familiarity comes over with every searing and economical note he plucks from his guitar. His rough edged tenor voice and phrasing fit perfectly with his songs and playing. The boy is a natural, and I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of Spencer MacKenzie in the coming months.

The single Frozen Hearts is available November 21st, and the album Empty Chairs February 20th. ****

Review by Andy Sharrocks

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