Ken Wallis Chats With Chuck Jackson & Gary Kendall Of The Hogtown Allstars

Photo Credit: Ken Wallis.

Since the touring retirement of Downchild, The Hogtown Allstars have picked up the baton and carried on with a new blues tradition and a new band. Comprised of many Downchild members and other veteran performers, the Hogtown Allstars are set to take the stage with a slew of newly minted songs and a steady touring schedule. They are rightly billed as “The Blues With Experience And Dedication”

Ken Wallis interviewed Chuck Jackson and Gary Kendall of The Hog Town Allstars for the radio show BluesSource Radio. The following are excerpts from that interview, edited and amended for brevity and clarity.

Photo Credit: Ken Wallis.

Ken Wallis

Recently I attended the Tim Horton's Southside Shuffle. It was the 27th version and for the past 26 years, the final band that always closed out the festival was Downchild. At the 27th version a new tradition has started with the Hogtown Allstars closing out the festival. To fill us in on the Hogtown Allstars lead vocalist, Chuck Jackson is joining us. Chuck, great seeing you again.

Chuck Jackson

Great to see you, Ken. Always a pleasure talking with you.

Ken Wallis

And also joining us is bass player Gary Kendall.

Gary Kendall

Hi, Ken. How are you? Hi, Chuck. How you doing?

Chuck Jackson

Hey, good. I haven't seen you in a long time. [LAUGHTER] 

Ken Wallis

I bet. [LAUGHTER ] .  First of all, Chuck, when did the Hogtown All-Stars first start?

Chuck Jackson

Well, Gary knows a little bit more about that.  He started the band back in the early days, so he might be able to answer that for you better than I can.

Gary Kendall

Yeah, we started officially in 2013 because that's when we were offered our first gig.  It was supposed to be one gig with James Doran on the Blues on the Rideau series.  And as soon as James announced the show calling the band, the Hogtown Allstars, and listed all of our names, we got two other gigs immediately and the money was pretty good. So we just kind of looked at each other and went yeah, let's do this.  The rest is history.

We pretty much got our record deal with Stony Plain Records, the same way, totally by accident.  I was trying to get Linus Entertainment to release the Maple Blues Revue Live At Twisted Pines recording,  because the previous record company had gone out of business, and Jeff Kulawick from Linus Entertainment, the umbrella company of Stony Plain, said to me that he didn't really think he could do anything with the Maple Blues Revue recording, but that he’d sure like to record The Hogtown Allstars, so once again we said we'll do it.

Ken Wallis

Who came up with the name Hogtown All Stars?

Gary Kendall

Well, that's another story.   We were going to do a gig for James Doran, and it was my quartet with Chuck Jackson and Diana Braithwaite and it was called the Hogtown Allstars, featuring the Gary Kendall Band with special guest Chuck Jackson and Diana Braithwaite.

And we were supposed to do the Blues on the Rideau Series.  And in those days Downchild played the Grey Cup party the last weekend of November every year. We always did it. So Chuck and I booked the weekend before with James, thinking, no problem. Well the Grey Cup moved the date so we had to go to James and say, sorry, we have to cancel and for a couple of years it was like he’d say I'll never work with you guys again. But then he changed his mind with the idea of booking the members of Downchild who weren't in Costa Rica in the wintertime. When we were kicking around ideas for what we going to use for the name, it was his suggestion. Why don't you just use that name that we used before?  So. It all came together pretty easily.

Ken Wallis

And Chuck, who's in the band?

Chuck Jackson

Just basically, me and Gary, nobody else counts. [LAUGHTER]   

No, we've got a great lineup, we've got, of course, five members of Downchild, Gary and myself and then of course Tyler Yarema and Pat Carey and Jimmy Cason.  All former members of Downchild and then we've added Howard Moore and of course, Juno award-winning Teddy Leonard, who played with one of the great Blues bands Fathead for many, many years.

Ken Wallis

And for folks that haven't heard the album Hog Wild yet, how would you describe the music on there?

Chuck Jackson

Full of bacon and very wild. [LAUGHHTER]. 

You know what, it's pretty eclectic, I think.   Gary and I wrote a lot of songs on the album, and we did I think, two covers. The Hogtown Allstars have a lot of respect for Downchild and, Donnie, what he did for us. So we actually included some Downchild tunes that both Gary and I wrote with Downchild. And of course you can't play anything by Downchild without someone mentioning Flip, Flop and Fly, because every time I go to a radio station to do an interview, they think the only song that Downchild recorded was Flip, Flop and Fly.

Gary Kendall

Yeah, I'd just like to add that I think the sound of the Hogtown Allstars is all of our influences between all the guys.  You know, of course we're heavily influenced by Blues, but Rhythm and Blues also, and there's even a little bit of Country and Jazz that kind of mixes into our music. So all in all, it's Canadiana.

Chuck Jackson

Yes, that's a good term.

Ken Wallis

Where can folks get a hold of the album?

Gary Kendall

These days, you can stream it on all streaming services or off of our website http://thehogtownallstars.ca and you can do a PayPal deal off of that or at live performances.

Chuck Jackson

And we have some great videos on our website and of course you can certainly get updated with all our gigs on our website too, so it's worth the checkout.

Ken Wallis

And speaking of gigs, you guys have a special event coming up in Hamilton.

Gary Kendall

Yeah, it’s gonna be great to get back to the Hammer.

Ken Wallis

So tell us what's going on?  Where are you performing and where do you get tickets?

Gary Kendall

We're at Stonewalls, the great live music venue in Hamilton. You can get the ticket link by going to either the Stonewalls website or to the Hogtown Allstars website and buy your advance tickets there or pick them up at the. door.  

Chuck Jackson

Or if you want, you can meet me in a dark alley just around the corner, and I will have some tickets in my pocket and I'll sell them really cheap.  [LAUGHTER]

Ken Wallis

Cash only I assume.

Chuck Jackson

Of course, my goodness. I'll take Canadian Tire Money too. [LAUGHTER]

Ken Wallis

What's the date and the time of the concert?

Gary Kendall

It's Friday the 24th of October, it's an 8:00pm show. Doors open at 7:30pm.

Ken Wallis

So it's going to be a great show and you guys always put on great performances.  I've seen the Hogtown Allstars a couple of times and I encourage everybody to attend this event because when you guys come to Hamilton, it's an event for sure.

Gary Kendall

We’ve been playing a lot this summer. When the band started, we could only do shows within the Downchild schedule, so we would probably do half a dozen shows a year, but with Downchild doing the Farewell Tour last year, we're starting to stretch out a little bit more.  We started this year in April for a show at the Redwood Theatre in Toronto on bad Thursday, the night before Good Friday, which is going to become an annual event for us somewhere and we'll present it. We're going back to Redwood again in ‘26 for bad Thursday. But we've played a lot this summer and the band is hot. And Chuck put together a great show for a special show for the Southside Shuffle, where we put the Extra Large tag on it, and expanded the horn section and added backup singers who are on the on the record anyway. We've been pushing it a little harder this year and. we've also been recording our live shows. We've recorded the Redwood show, we’re at Hughes Room in the New Year in Toronto, we're going to record that show. So who knows, our second album could be a live album.

Ken Wallis

Oh, that sounds great.

Chuck Jackson

If you're a big Downchild fan, we're definitely carrying on the tradition. If you love Downchild shows you're going to love the Hogtown Allstars because they’re all great players and we do Downchild tunes, and it's something fresh and new with some of the new material we've written.

Ken Wallis

That will be a great concert at Stonewalls, and I want to thank you, Chuck and Gary for joining us and I will be there for that show for sure.

Gary Kendall

Hey, you can introduce us, Ken.

Ken Wallis

Sure. My pleasure.

Gary Kendall

Yeah. We always like to have a good introduction from a professional before we start playing. So you're the guy, you got that job.

Ken Wallis

Well, I don't know if I'm a professional or not, but I'll give it a shot.

Gary Kendall

Can be like us. You can think it.

Chuck Jackson

We've been doing that for a long time. [LAUGHTER]

Ken Wallis

Love talking to you guys. Thanks so much for the interview and we'll keep in touch, and we'll see you at Stonewalls.

Chuck Jackson

Thanks and thanks for everything you do for us and for the Blues community.

Photo Credit: Ken Wallis.