The Graham Guest Trio

This format gets to the core of the blues/jazz small combo. The trio provides a different sensibility, a different space with more room to move and nowhere to hide leaving everything bare.

Graham will be playing his repertoire including new songs and see where the evening goes…

Blues superstar Sue Foley says of Graham “I’ve always been amazed at what a natural he is. He is not just a Canadian treasure, he’s a true blues treasure.”

Graham Guest was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in both British Columbia and Edmonton, where he now resides. Graham’s interest in specifically blues music started with classic Chess-era recordings. There were a limited number of vinyl recordings in the home that Graham became familiar with at a very young age. For whatever unknown reason, this sound registered with him and became the soundtrack for his life.

Alongside conventional piano study, Graham was mentored by Edmonton legend Charlie Austin who helped Graham to grasp the deeper concepts present in the structures of music. As a teen and then a very young adult, Graham began playing live and in recording studios with a large variety of artists and bands across all genres. However, in the midst of these multiple endeavors, blues music has remained a passion and focus.

In high school Graham was already performing live with bands and in recording studios for pay. On one occasion, Graham had to get a note to get out of school to work on Chicago blues legend Maurice John Vaughn’s Alligator recording In the Shadow of the City. After getting out of school, Graham was on the road almost immediately in the late Eddie Shaw’s touring band. Over many years, Graham would tour on multiple occasions across North America with Eddie and his band. This on its own created a lasting legacy of music and memories. By Eddie bringing him on the road, Graham was able to not only learn the blues craft, but play on Beale Street in Memphis (while still a minor). It was also an opportunity to be shown the Mississippi Delta and have it explained in the first-person by Eddie. This touring also allowed Graham to meet and play with Delta Blues legends Booba Barnes and Lonnie Pitchford. This was in the pre-Internet era and these experiences were, and continue to be, invaluable. Aside from this, Graham also spent a winter as one of the house musicians in the famed Old Absinthe House bar in New Orleans, LA.

In Canada, Graham has spent his adult life to-date, touring and recording off and on with a who’s who of blues artists from Canada, the USA and Europe. Some of these relationships have been short, some long and some periodic. Highlights are difficult to itemize because there are so many. However, there were some amazing moments over the years working with both Frankie Lee and Sonny Rhodes who were both larger than life. Also, the long-standing musical relationships with Rodger Stanley (Edmonton), Raoul Bhaneja (Toronto) and Greg

Demchuk (Calgary), have all produced amazing multiple recordings and numerous memorable live dates with overlapping roles within those groups. Within these relationships Graham is either/or: the piano player, organist, songwriter, singer, producer. Or sometimes, just a friend.

Another rich aspect to Graham’s blues career has been his ongoing work with three- time [US] Blues Award winner Sue Foley. As a long-time member of her touring and recording band in the 2000s, Graham essentially performed in every corner of Canada, the US and Europe. From the North Pole (for the Canadian military) to Miami, Alaska, San Diego, California, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Finnish outposts, Paris, London and on the legendary German television program Rockpalast which produced the Sue Foley Live in Europe DVD. Among the years of amazing experiences alongside Sue were performing multiple times as the opening act for B.B. King and Joe Cocker, opening up for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in Montana, performing multiple times with Jeff Healey and watching Sue progress to being the top traditional female blues performer in the USA. Graham was also a finalist at the International Blues Challenge, and the only Canadian to record at the famed Delmark Records in Chicago.

Another longstanding and multifaceted relationship for Graham was with his late friend Harpdog Brown with whom he recorded two albums and toured extensively across Canada and one time to Europe. This phase of life and music was complex for both of them and yielded some truly great nights of music. Some of these were as a duo and some with backing bands. In this era, Harpdog and Graham would frequently travel back and forth across Canada from BC to Quebec in the space of usually a few weeks mostly via driving. The reality was that although they were very different people (the Odd Couple) they were the only two that could fully handle each other and they had meals, conversations, car accidents and secrets that are now memories—all this alongside hundreds of live performances. The reality of this musical partnership is so blended with a sort of pseudo-fiction that it is difficult to truly describe it.

Graham’s solo career as a vocalist has always been a feature of his overall career but has now become the driving force. Alongside his collaborations, Graham has consistently been honing his craft as a vocalist and songwriter.