Ken Wallis Chats With Canadian Blues Artist, Little Magic Sam

Little Magic Sam and his band of accomplished musicians feature a blistering blend of Contemporary and Traditional Blues. It’s a real treat to see this band live as the quality of music from start to finish links a deep connection to the audience.

In 2024  The Little Magic Sam Band won the Maple Blues Award for "New Artist or Group of the Year", further proof that the Blues sky is limitless for a band that honours the Blues artists of the past with newly minted material. 

Ken Wallis interviewed Little Magic Sam for the radio show BluesSource Canada.  The following are excerpts from that interview, edited and amended for clarity and brevity.

Ken Wallis

Little Magic Sam has a brand-new release out. It's entitled Live At The Rivoli and joining us Is Little Magic Sam. Great seeing you again, Sam.

Little Magic Sam

Hey, great to see you too.

Ken Wallis 

Super album, but first of all, let's turn the clock back just a little bit. What got you interested in music in the first place?

Little Magic Sam

So that goes way back. I was about six or seven years old, and I was really into basketball and sports at the time. Music wasn't really a big thing, unless I was shooting hoops or something and I would be listening to a CD. I ended up getting really sick.  I had a kidney virus that ended up just wiping me out for about two years, to the point where I couldn't go to school.

I couldn't play basketball anymore. I couldn't really get out of bed. And it was an ongoing thing where I'd go to the Children's Hospital back and forth multiple times a week. And I mean it kind of crushed my whole world because as a kid, going outside and playing with your friends at recess is everything. So suddenly I kind of hit a brick wall and I wasn't able to do that. When you're a little kid, you don't really understand what's going on in terms of medical stuff, and my parents were obviously really freaked out.

I just got so bored that my aunt brought me a little keyboard that could sit on my lap while I was lying in bed. The movie Titanic had just come out, and I remember hearing My Heart Will Go On. That's a well written tune and it was a big hit. And I remember just playing along to that on the keyboard and then trying to figure out different melodies. And I would just kind of fool around until I'd come up with something that I thought was OK, and beginning to sound like something. And my sister was taking piano lessons. She's three years older than me. And of course, when you're younger, you look up to your older siblings and you go, well, if they're doing it, I wanna do it.

So as soon as I was well enough and I started feeling better, I'd be playing around in my room, and I'd been trying to match the pitch with my voice. My sister started taking vocal lessons as well, so as soon as I was well, I took some lessons. I just tried to piece it together by ear and I was just doing a lot of learning by just fiddling around until I found something neat.

Eventually I entered a talent show. I think at school, and I sang My Heart Will Go On. I got a backing track to it and I sang it. My family said you might be on to something here. If you can channel your energy into this and it's made you feel better, you realize that you can create something. It might be something that'll last you for a long time if you just keep going with it. They said you should keep working on it and keep taking lessons. So my grandparents were a huge influence. My grandparents loved the rat pack, they love all the standards. They used to listen to Frank Sinatra constantly.

And my first performances were singing in nursing homes and that crowd absolutely loved all the standards.  So my family started to pressure me to get into that and it just felt like the music was timeless. It didn't matter how old I was or how old the music was. There was something about the arrangements and the lyrics and the production behind it all. I thought it was really classy and real. I was different and none of my friends obviously listened to that stuff, so they really didn't get me. I got bullied a lot in school, but I just kept learning more and more of those great American songbook songs.

I had somebody that was making karaoke CD backing tracks, and I would go to private events, parties, nursing homes, all sorts of different things, and I would do this set of standard songs. I started taking more advanced vocal lessons. Eventually, as I progressed, I started playing with actual combos like jazz combos. And we were live musicians, which really changed a lot. And this went until I was about fourteen, and my parents were awesome.

They weren't stage parents, but they were great to drive me around and make sure that all the gear was ready. They kind of played manager for a while. I was singing sometimes five or six times a week. Sometimes multiple shows a day. My teachers were great, but I missed a ton of school. They always made sure that I caught up, but I missed lots. I traveled all around Canada and sometimes parts of the States. I even got to be on the Jenny Jones show when I was nine, singing Frank Sinatra. It took me to some great places and I realized once I was thirteen or fourteen  that the vocal thing wasn't that sustainable. As I hit puberty ,everything started changing. I remember doing one performance where my voice finally cracked and squeaked and I was so mortified by that and humiliated. And I said to my parents, that's it. No more. I can't do this anymore.

As a last-ditch effort, they bought me an electric guitar for Christmas. And I obviously wasn't really into that kind of music, but my dad had a record collection of The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix had a Stratocaster that looked just like my Strat  knock-off that I got for Christmas.

And so everything then started to shift again. I went away from jazz and away from the standards, and I became like every fourteen-fifteen   year old with an electric guitar. I started playing all sorts of stuff. Black Sabbath, ACDC. When  was 16 my dad took me on a road trip down to Nashville. I happened to find a B.B. King CD at a CD warehouse. And I said, well, B.B. King has a club here in Nashville which would be good to check this out. The cd was Live At The. Regal. My dad and I basically wore that thing out on that road trip there and back, and that was it.

I was bit by the Blues bug, and I realized that the guitar took on a whole different form for me now and I could use some of my jazz influence and some of what I had learned in that style to apply to the Blues and it just kind of started to shift. Colin, James And The Little Big Band. It was the perfect fusion for me of that swing sound with the Blues guitar sound. And I mean that just blew my mind. I wanted to be called James all of a sudden.

Ken Wallis 

tell me how did you get the nickname Little magic?

Little Magic Sam

It's kind of two things. I went to New Orleans a few times and I saw Little Freddie King. Little Freddie King is really interesting to me because at first I thought this is gonna be a Freddie King tribute act. He’s not related to Freddie King to the best of my knowledge, the Texas Cannonball, Freddie King, that is. But his name is Freddy, and he carried a big Gibson, a cherry red one, just like Freddie King And I said, well this is cool because he's got some elements borrowing Freddy King, but his sound is way, way different.

I also loved Magic Sam, and I thought Magic Sam's voice to me always stood out amongst all the Blues players because there's something, a vocal quality that really can't be replicated. It's a haunting sound, but he also made his Blues style a lot smoother and a lot more melodic, and it was way different from a lot of the other Electric Blues.

So I thought if Little Freddie King isn't related to Freddie King, but his name's Fred and he's kind of going based on his influences. I really like the name Little Magic Sam and I started to just kind of toss the idea around with my band at the time. I think half of them thought it was OK and the other half thought, why would you call yourself that?

You're not a little boy or you're not a magician. You know, I got confused for a magician for the first couple of years, for sure, but that's where it came from. I’m not trying to be a tribute actor or cover act of Magic Sam or anything like that. But I I love that influence and the name really stuck with me, so I thought of a way of paying tribute to the people that I love and the people that I listen to would be a good way to do it.

Ken Wallis 

So Sam, where was your live album recorded?

Little Magic Sam

At a historic venue in Toronto. It's been a few things over the years, but it's The Rivoli and it's down at Queen and Spadina, just down from the Horseshoe Tavern. Originally built in 1911, I believe. It's this beautiful old Toronto building that hasn't been torn down yet.

Toronto loves basically to take the facade off these old buildings and turn them into a condo or a computer store or whatever. But The Rivoli is still there intact, it was a a silent film theatre, one of the first silent film theatres in Canada. And then it became a vaudeville theatre after that. So it was a really big arts and culture focus in that building. Then it sat vacant for years until, I believe the late 70s, early 80s, and then the history of it really, really took a turn. It became a place known for sketch comedy and for some of the biggest names to come out of Canada from the comedy scene and the music scene. Mike Myers was discovered there. Kids In The Hall being the most notable. That's where they got their start and that's where they were noticed and that's where they found fame. You've got Lorne Michaels from SNL. He used to do auditions at The Rivoli for the SNL cast.

There's a lot more and a lot of history to it, but the main floor downstairs is a giant venue, kind of a cavernous space. It's a great spot though, with some of the best sound in the city. Great bar. Great food. Upstairs is what I was interested in though. When I first moved to Toronto, we would have birthday parties and get togethers upstairs in the pool hall. It's this really funky old retro Pool Hall that really hasn't been touched in probably 50 years, maybe more. It's got these really high ceilings and these big little glass windows, and you'd think it wouldn't really make for a great concoction, but if you get the right person behind the board, you get somebody doing a great mix in there. The venue becomes the part of an instrument. When you've got a room that sounds so unique that you go, I've got to do something. That would be a shame to just waste it. Eventually I got a gig there and we started playing there every other Sunday last fall. We just tossed around this idea that we would love to do something there.

And fortunately, the bartender, his name is Damon Lineback. He's an audio tech. He's one of the best audio techs in Canada. He's been a guitar tech, a live audio tech for multiple bands, Big Sugar being one of them, and he just so happens to be the bartender upstairs at the Rivoli. This guy is a wizard of analog electronics. He loves all things old school and vintage like we do, and he was really itching to try out a few different things.

And he said “I've been looking for a project, I've been looking for the right band to record up here because I think it would be something really unique.” The venue got a piano, a really nice old upright piano that's not perfectly in tune, which is perfect for our sound. And all of a sudden, the pieces fell into place. So Damon showed up with his gear and came up with a brilliant idea for recording mobile and had a bunch of vintage mics that would have been used in the late fifties, early sixties, some of the stuff that Muddy Waters would have used.

He thought if we could put all this stuff in one place and get a couple of sets then we can pick and choose what we're going to do. But first we needed to pack the place so it became the mission to try to fill the room. The room got absolutely jam-packed. People drove from hours away. We were so grateful to have a room like that, and we thought now we have to put on the best performance that we can because we're only going to get one shot at doing this. So the entire album, it's 10 songs, they're all my original songs and it's a full performance.

We didn't do any overdubs. We didn't re-record anything. We didn't do alternate takes. It's literally just the way that it was heard that day in the room. The focus of the way it sounds was that we wanted to put the listener in the bar. We wanted to put them right there in a seat and I had an idea from listening to Oscar Peterson. Live On The. Town. It's Oscar Peterson from the Town Tavern in Toronto from the fiffties. And there's something about that record. It doesn't matter what year that was, it's timeless music. And you're right there in the crowd. You've got the clinking glasses, you've got people taking their order at the bar, you've got everything. And I thought, well, if we could do something like that, even touch on that and make people feel like they were there that day, then we'll succeed.

I'm so thrilled with what we ended up coming with. The band did such a great job. They worked so hard. They nailed it. They nailed it on the first take every time. And I couldn't ask for anything more.

Ken Wallis 

Well, tell us who else is in the band.

Little Magic Sam

 So we've got my wife Maia Van Raes. She plays piano. And Steve Grant on harmonica. “Cabbagetown” Steve, the Toronto legend himself. Drew Danko on the bass and Drew has bass in his blood and his uncle was Rick Danko from The Band, and he has a sensibility for this music that is a lot further beyond his years. He's a couple years younger than us. And Ben Graffam on drums, Ben also drums for Jade Blues, a great upcoming artist here in Toronto and a band called Tenshi, a jazz fusion band. Ben is one of the best drummers in Canada and I will say this over and over again. the guy can figure something out in the snow. He’s just so consistent. The band all works together and gets along. It feels like a family, and it feels like we move as one unit. There’re no individual parts when we get on stage, it's just one sound and that's what I've always strived for.

Ken Wallis 

Yeah, it's quite seamless. Your voice, the guitar, everything just seems to blend together and my gosh, the harmonica playing.  I'm amazed.

Little Magic Sam

Steve's the real deal. Steve's come from really humble beginnings. And he's had a very interesting life. He hasn't had an easy life, but it comes through in his playing and the joy that Steve just exudes whenever he plays, it's so infectious. And the second you hear him play; you get it. And you feel like you've known him forever.

He's also one of the nicest guys on the planet. So, it helps to have somebody with the experience of growing up and buying Blues records. He's got to see so many great artists. I mean he got to sit in with Buddy. Guy and Junior Wells. He got to see Albert Collins so many times and Stevie Wonder and he's an encyclopedia of Blues and R&B.  That's a resource that's so invaluable.

Ken Wallis 

The first time I put the album on I just had to sit back and listen from song one right through to the end and then I did it all over again. I’ve also seen you live and the performances are amazing. You're one heck of an upward trend, my friend. It's really been great hearing you.

Where can folks get a hold of your album?

Little Magic Sam

You can order it through our website littlemagicsam.com or through direct messaging us on Instagram or on Facebook.  Bandcamp is a great way as well if you don't want to buy a physical CD. A lot of people don't have a CD player anymore. I always make the joke that if you don't have a CD player, they make great coasters, stocking stuffers for your family. But you can buy a digital download if you want to support the band. You can, of course, stream it on all the different streaming services.

But if you want a really good quality download littlemagicsam.bandcamp.com.

And if you don't know about Bandcamp, it's an awesome way to support independent artists in a time when it’s an uphill battle every single day to try to at least get your music out there and get heard. It’s tough to make any sort of profit off it or even make ends meet when it comes to the cost of production and distribution.  

A lot of people are asking about vinyl, and we do aim to put this project on vinyl.

Ken Wallis 

Thanks so much for coming on the show. Sam, it's been great chatting with you.

Little Magic Sam

Well, thanks, Ken, and thank you to everybody who listens to the Blues. Just keep it going. Keep supporting it, keep discovering and keep it healthy.