Normally, the Thursday after Thanksgiving launches a four-day music festival, filling Thorold’s halls, restaurants and pubs with the best blues musicians—and fans—from both sides of the border.
And while Thorold’s downtown will be silent this year, Tim Sinnett and John Davis are credited with founding the festival that helped so many.
The Canal Bank Shuffle Blues Festival is the brainchild of the two former Thoroldites and friends. After attending the Spring Blues Festival in Orillia in 2002, they decided, “Why not try this in Thorold?”
Joined by fellow volunteers Rudy Walter—who recently passed away—as well as John O’Brien, Dave Rotz, and Bob Liddycoat, the inaugural festival featured 12 Canadian bands during the course of three days. To cover the cost of bands that first year, the team sold Crispy Crème donuts from May to October, never dreaming the event would be so successful, or gradually grow into one of Ontario’s premier blues festivals.
For 18 years, festival profits generated were donated to charity; including the Niagara Autism Society, Wellspring Niagara, the Animal Assistance Society, the Thorold Community Activities Group, and countless others, to the tune of more than $200,000 in total.
Known to locals as “The Shuffle,” the highly-anticipated festival earned a reputation for showcasing every genre of blues imaginable performed by many of the best-known and award-winning artists in the blues world. The committee also made it their mission to educate that blues isn't necessarily just sad music, but rather an art form that evokes authentic emotions in the audience, unlike technotronics used by many musicians today.
The genre’s universal appeal stems from the fact that it's the basis for all other music forms, and big-name bands like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and hundreds more produce music with roots firmly planted in the blues. At its heart, it tells the tale of universal sadness we've all felt, but Shuffle festivals focused on bringing a livelier party type of blues.
In the past several years, the Shuffle has featured an average of more than 30 shows over four days each year, and included many international big blues artists like Jack de Keyzer, Downchild Blues Band, Joe Louis Walker, Johnny Rawls, Chris Duarte and David Gogo.
More volunteers joined the team during subsequent festivals and they worked year round, hosting “seed money” shows in other months to help cover the cost of bands for the fall festival. As artistic director, Sinnett made annual treks to Memphis and other blues meccas to scope out new and exciting talent to book in Thorold.
Music-lovers found fun and several styles of blues in a friendly small-town setting, at various local venues, featuring everything from one acoustic guitarist in an intimate corner cafe to hundreds of people dancing at Holy Rosary Hall. The annual event also earned a great reputation among the musicians, who were frequently seen "shuffling" to catch other acts after their own gigs, occasionally joining each other onstage for impromptu gigs.
With the addition of main sponsors like Rolling Meadows, the Pen Centre, and Henderson's Pharmacy, the festival helped place Thorold firmly in the musical spotlight, and lured locals and tourists to town in droves every third weekend in October.
