Sugar Brown (blues, boogie woogie)

It’s a blues world, and Sugar Brown is living in it and “calling all blues” with real grace and style. The Toronto-based vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has found his full creative voice on It’s A Blues World (Calling All Blues!), his third album. His brand of dark, sweet, and inconsolable blues has caught the attention of the Canadian music scene, winning the 2013 Toronto Blues Society Talent Search. Born Ken Chester Kawashima in Bowling Green, Ohio, to a Japanese father and a Korean mother, Sugar Brown was given his nom de blues by Chicago blues legend Taildragger in 1992, who said to him “You ain’t black… but you sure ain’t white… You’re Sugar Brown." Since receiving his Ph.D. in modern Japanese history in 2002, he has been based in Toronto.