Colin James is one lucky guy. He is a popular musician without being a "pop" musician. This gives him the freedom to constantly evolve and move on. The Friday night concert at the Key City was his fourth visit to Cranbrook and, as with most of his concerts, he played to a sold out house. This Cranbrook date was the first in his latest tour in support of his CD "Rooftop and Satellites". Often musicians become a captive of their popularity and their audiences and can only perform their recognizable hits of yesteryears. That hasn't happen to Colin. He has evolved over the years and continues to take the audience along for the ride. For starters he has so much material that he couldn't play it all in any given night. The older material was there but so was a healthy dose of new songs.

With 14 CDs to his credit, 14 Juno nominations and 6 Juno Awards, Colin has been very busy over the last twenty years. Along with that other giant of the era, Jeff Healey, he rose to fame in the late 1980's in what turned out to be a golden era of the Canadian Rock / Blues scene. Between the two of them they did not leave too many unclaimed awards for their fellow musicians. Unfortunately Jeff, who had played the Key City a year or so ago, died last year but lucky for us Colin James is still out their creating and performing.

The night kicked off with one of his newer numbers "Man's gotta be a Stone". Through the first few numbers there were some minor technical problems that, if he had not have mentioned them, the audience probably would not have noticed. He kept his guitar tech, Tim Blunt, hopping as he kept swapping guitars while trying to resolve the problem. He is such a polished performer that he barely skipped a beat while this was all going on. The last time he was in Cranbrook he had lost his voice so this was just a minor glitch.

The man is obviously a gear freak and every guitar player in the audience must have been drooling as he worked his way through the arsenal of instruments that were lined up just off stage. There was plenty to appreciate but the National Steel Guitar was a stand out on the song of the same name. In the opening solo section the guitar had a truly magnificent sound that, with a sense of urgency, pulled the rest of the band into the mix before riding out on the back up vocal harmonies. The song was written as a tribute to the late classic blues master Son House.

Apart from the songs from his latest CD he worked his way through the whole gamut of traditional blues, rock, swing and pop that has become "his country of origin". It is a long way from the classic acoustic blues of the 1930's, the discovery of electricity by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry in the 50's, the British invasion of the 60's, Motown, Soul and all the stops he managed to visit along the way to the present. In one way or another Colin managed to dip into all the rich traditions of the genre. The concert was an hour and half tour de force of the Rock / Blues genre. From the delta blues of Robert Johnson ("Stones in My Pass way") right through to Van Morrison's "Into the Misty", it was all there.

Colin is the front man of the band but the other members are the value added ingredients of a rock slid organization. There is no doubt that a horn section really lifts a band. Steve Hilliam, with some great Tenor Sax solos, and Terry Townson on trumpet rode on top of the solid rhythm section of Chris Caddell on guitar, Doug Elliott on bass and Pat Steward on drums. Slightly off to the side there was Eric Webster on keyboards who added some very tasty organ solos and ambience to the funky mix.

The song "Stronger" had a great line - "Days are colder / Nights are getting longer". It was cold out side but the evening of music by Colin James and his crew was not quite long enough. Even with a three song encore the audience still wanted more.