“The blues is such an amazing musical form in that its structural simplicity is an easy entry way for people learning and yet it is capable of expressing such depth and richness. It has endless variations within those forms.  We need all the ways we can get for people to communicate both the joy and sadness, to acknowledge our pain and in doing so find a way forward. The blues does that!”

Ken Whiteley: Keep Going’ in the Roots

Canadian folk legend Ken Whiteley releases his 37th album, 'Keep Going’ (2026), via Pyramid Records, distributed worldwide by Distrokid. A multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer who has been at the heart of Canadian roots music for more than six decades, Whiteley is a Mariposa Festival Hall of Fame inductee, a Genie Award winner for Best Original Song in a Canadian feature film, and the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Maple Blues Awards and Folk Music Ontario. With 'Keep Going,' he delivers his most thematically unified and deeply felt work in years - a record that draws from the oldest wells of blues and gospel to speak directly to the moment we are all living through. The album's origin is characteristically Whiteley: in February 2025, he slipped on ice and fractured a bone in his ankle. Unable to walk for a month, he sat down, picked up his guitar, and began writing. The result is 12 tracks - seven originals, four classics that speak urgently to today, and one co-write with Eve Goldberg - recorded at Casa Wroxton Studio in Toronto with engineer Nik Tjelios and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal. The breadth of Whiteley's musicianship across 'Keep Going' is remarkable even by his own extraordinary standards. He sings and plays acoustic guitar, resophonic guitar, mandolin, Hammond organ, piano, mandola, mandocello, harmonica, string bass, electric bass, and washboard across the 12 tracks - joined by a cast of trusted collaborators including vocalist Ciceal Levy, drummer Bucky Berger, his brother Chris Whiteley on harmonica and cornet, and bassist Gord Mowat.

(Photo:Ken Whiteley)

The stature Whiteley brings to this record has been earned across one of the richest careers in Canadian music. Beginning his public performances at the age of 14, he has shared stages and recordings with Pete Seeger, John Hammond Jr., Blind John Davis, Stan Rogers, and Tom Paxton. He changed the course of Canadian children's music through his work with Raffi, Fred Penner, and dozens of others, and has frequently collaborated with his brother Chris Whiteley and niece and nephew Jenny and Daniel Whiteley. He has written more than 400 songs, which have been covered by more than a dozen artists, and has released four albums since 2020 alone - including CFMA award nominees 'Long Time Travelling' and 'So Glad I'm Here.' These days, as he notes with characteristic wit, he is as likely to be performing at a yoga ashram as a bar, drawing on the full storehouse of blues, folk, and gospel to make music that brings people together.

Interview by Michael Limnios               Special Thanks: Ken Whiteley & Eric Alper

How has the music influenced your views of the world? What moment changed your music life the most? 

Blues and related musical forms have been the backdrop and sound track to my life but really, it’s the people I have seen and met that affected my world views. Starting in the 1960’s I had the opportunity to meet, interact and in some cases become friends with so many great blues people. We got to know the seminal guitarist Lonnie Johnson who lived the last 6 years of his life in Toronto (starting in 1965) and I was impacted by how he carried himself. His fashion sense was from an earlier era but he carried it off with such wonderful aplomb, always looking good, on his own terms. It’s more than the clothes a person wears. It’s the sense that, “I’m proud of who I am and what I do and that’s not dependent on what you think of me.” I remember when I was 24 hosting a workshop at the Mariposa Folk Festival on “Blues on Unusual Instruments”. It included David Bromberg and Appalachian autoharpist Kilby Snow. At the time Bromberg, a guitarist/multi-instrumentalist whose work I love, was signed to a major label and he brought his entire 6 piece band with him, determined to wow the crowd with his whole show. They did some big number and then it was Kilby Snow’s turn. I was sitting right in between them.  Kilby was totally unfazed and just did what he did; sing and play (with considerable skill) from his heart. That lesson was huge for me. Do what you do, as best as you can and don’t worry about the other stuff you have no control over.

The blues has always had to deal at some level with injustice and the horrific effects of racism and so throughout its history there are both subtle and explicit forms of truth telling. That ability to lift people up both emotionally and spiritually are powerful legacies of Black American music that inspire me and I try to carry that forward. Bernice Reagon, who founded Sweet Honey In The Rock, personified for me someone who built on the traditional foundations to make music that spoke passionately and eloquently about contemporary issues.

I’ve had so many incredible, life changing moments in music but I’ll go all the way back to the summer of 1964 when I was thirteen. I was at my first folk festival and I was watching the Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt meet each other for the first time. Two of the all-time great fingerpicking blues guitarists sitting in the dugout (the festival was in the baseball park) having an amazing time sharing music. Then a little while later, I saw Skip James's first appearance before a predominantly white audience. He said, “18 days ago I was in a hospital bed and thought I was going to die and that young man [pointing to Richard Waterman] found me and said people still wanted to hear me sing. Well here goes.” Then his incredible high, keening voice came out so full of feeling and I was blown away. I said to myself, “That’s what I want to be, an old blues singer.”

“A great thing about music is that it is a universal language.  All over the world people have made music to celebrate and mourn, to dance and contemplate and to embody both ritual and spontaneity. These days no one needs to live in a cultural vacuum.” (Photo: Ken Whiteley)

How do you describe your sound, music philosophy and songbook? What keeps a musician passionate after six decades in folk, blues, roots music?

My sound and songbook are pretty variable depending on many things. I must know at least a thousand songs over many styles. From straight ahead blues bands, acoustic swing, gospel ensembles to fiddle and banjo folk groups, I’ve done a lot of kinds of music over the years. I’ve written over 400 songs and those cover a very broad range as well. My repertoire these days features a lot of original songs, many of which draw on blues, folk and gospel traditions and there are always some older songs that I also want to include in a performance. As recently as 10 years ago I put out an album and performed with a 9 piece band including horn section, keys, harmony vocalists as well as bass and drums but these days I’m more focused on acoustic sounds. I still do gigs with string bass, drums and Ciceal Levy on backing vocals but I’ll play 6 and 12 string acoustics and my 1941 National resophonic which are the instruments I use when I play solo as well.

For me now, one of the greatest things is the profound act of singing with others – both those I’m on stage with and people in the audience. I feel honoured to facilitate bringing people into literal harmony as our bodies physically vibrate together. I believe music has the capacity to make our lives better both individually and collectively. For as long as I’m able, I want to be able to bring people together through the power of song.

Why do you think that Canadian Blues & Folk Scene continues to generate such a devoted following?

When a kind of music doesn’t haven’t mainstream support the people who like it have to be devoted!  Certainly, the explosion of folk festivals in the 1970’s presented blues and folk to a wide audience and planted a lot of seeds. We were very lucky in Toronto because so many of the blues masters like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and so many others played here regularly. Some of the players like Sunnyland Slim, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson and Blind John Davis would come up and play with local musicians which was like blues school for us. This has created a scene where many of us who had those opportunities can in turn mentor others and so it keeps rolling.

There’s also something universal about people singing and playing from the heart that touches people whether you know the origins of the music or not. Canada is so culturally diverse and people ancestrally from all over the world have stumbled on blues and folk and embraced it.

“My sound and songbook are pretty variable depending on many things. I must know at least a thousand songs over many styles. From straight ahead blues bands, acoustic swing, gospel ensembles to fiddle and banjo folk groups, I’ve done a lot of kinds of music over the years.” (Photo: Ken Whiteley)

Are there any memories with Pete Seeger, Blind John Davis, and John Hammond which you’d like to share with us?

There are so many memories! 

The first concert I saw by Pete Seeger was at Mariposa in 1966 and at the end of the concert he got the Staples Singers to come out and sing with him for two songs. Talk about inspiring! It came full circle 30 years later when the International Folk Alliance conference was in Toronto and there was an opening concert at Massey Hall, the grand old concert hall here. Pete asked me to get some gospel singers to perform with him so I got my friends Amoy and Ciceal Levy and bass singer Pat Patrick and the four of us got to close that show with him.

Blind John Davis, who had been the house piano player for Bluebird Records in the late 1930’s and early 40’s was a cigar smoking, bourbon drinking gentleman with an amazing memory, amazing ears, a big sense of humour and a rich and varied piano player. We met in the early 1970’s and he started staying with me when he came to Toronto. Some of those weeks were incredible with a steady stream of musicians coming by to jam; my brother Chris Whiteley, Colin Linden, Jim MacLean, Terry Wilkins and many others. We became close friends. I visited him in his home in Chicago and performed with him across Canada and also in the U.S. He kept his braille watch on Chicago time wherever he went, including in Europe where he toured regularly. One of his favourite jokes was to telephone someone and say, “You’re looking good” when even if he’d been in the room with you, he couldn’t see at all.  But his deeper vision of people was extremely sharp.

I feel a huge sense of loss about John Hammond’s recent passing as the world has lost a great one. My brother Chris and I bought an awful lot of blues records in the 1960’s – new releases by the original blues artists, reissues of tracks from the 20’s and 30’s and also the up and coming white singers who embraced the blues. John was really the first young white person that could not only copy the older blues musicians but with his album “So Many Roads” really established himself as someone who was adding to the cannon of great blues. I remember seeing John around 1965 at a little coffee house in Toronto and by the third set there were only a few folks left. Then all of a sudden John’s energy multiplied by a factor of 10 because John Lee Hooker had just walked in to see him! John was such an inspiration the way he always gave 100% with every performance. I shared stages with him at festivals in the 70’s and 80’s and the older blues musicians like Bukka White and Roosevelt Sykes had deep respect for him. He was such a gentleman and getting to produce and record an album (Nobody But You) by him was such an honour. We spent a lot of time together during that period of our lives.

“Music can bring people together, motivate us, make us think, make us laugh and cry. We must never underestimate the power of music in this world. How do I want music to affect people? Effectively.  Whatever I’m trying to say, may I say it with a purpose and may others receive it and understand.” (Photo: Ken Whiteley, drawing on the storehouse of roots makes music that brings people together)

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?

I think that things were simpler for musicians when I was coming up than they are now. For one thing there were fewer people trying to get heard. There are lots of technical advances that have made performing music for people so much easier and it can sound better now. When I first started playing we didn’t even have monitor speakers.

The music itself grows and evolves more organically and though the technical possibilities have a definite impact we’re still just trying to touch people with the music we make. I think it’s very important to maintain the connection that traditions provide. One of the great examples of that for me was getting to sing with Bessie Jones from the Georgia Sea Islands. I was 28 and she was 89. She remembered learning songs from her grandfather who remembered being taken as a small boy from Africa. That’s connection.

While AI generation may impact a lot of aspects of the music business I don’t think that it can effectively replace the kind of music that I and my peers make.  Whether in a big concert hall, a small club or a front porch it still comes down to person to person connection. AI may be able to replicate “thinking” but it doesn’t replace conscious awareness itself and that is the level we communicate on, soul to soul.

What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

A great thing about music is that it is a universal language. All over the world people have made music to celebrate and mourn, to dance and contemplate and to embody both ritual and spontaneity. These days no one needs to live in a cultural vacuum. Toronto is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. A few years ago I made a blues album (One World Dance) that had steel pan, Cuban percussion, jazz piano and lots of other musical curves but in my mind it was all still the blues. There are always those who want things to stay rigidly in the past and while I respect tradition enormously we also have to keep walking forward. 

Music can bring people together, motivate us, make us think, make us laugh and cry. We must never underestimate the power of music in this world.

How do I want music to affect people? Effectively.  Whatever I’m trying to say, may I say it with a purpose and may others receive it and understand.

“The music itself grows and evolves more organically and though the technical possibilities have a definite impact we’re still just trying to touch people with the music we make. I think it’s very important to maintain the connection that traditions provide.” (Photo: Ken Whiteley, a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer who has been at the heart of Canadian roots music for more than six decades)

What's the balance in music between technique (skills) and soul/emotions? Why is it important to we preserve and spread the blues?

I always say great soul can trump great technique any day of the week. I’ve been in black churches with some quite spectacular singers but then someone without a great set of pipesgets up and totally rocks the church because that person is singing from somewhere so deep and full of feeling. Great artists are the ones that combine both amazing skill and the ability to use it in the service of profound communication.

The blues is such an amazing musical form in that its structural simplicity is an easy entry way for people learning and yet it is capable of expressing such depth and richness. It has endless variations within those forms. We need all the ways we can get for people to communicate both the joy and sadness, to acknowledge our pain and in doing so find a way forward. The blues does that!

What are you doing to keep your music relevant today, to develop it and present it to the new generation?

Every recording I make builds on what’s come before it while at the same time is an answer to the question “What can I do differently this time?” My new album, “Keep Going” was less about pushing musical or lyrical boundaries and more about honing in on what I do well. It is more focused both thematically and with fewer other musicians. This allows me to lean into my musical strengths and create something clear and more consistent. There’s still lots of variety ranging from solo fingerpicking (A Smooth One), piano based romps (Pallett On Your Floor) and lots of slide playing, both uptempo and slow and intense. It explores the idea of perseverance and both the old songs and my new ones acknowledge the challenges, both personal and social and encourages us to keep going in the face of it.

At the end of the day, I go back to the lessons I learned years ago and just keep doing what I’m doing as well as I can, put it out there and whatever will be will be.

Ken Whiteley - Home

(Photo: Ken Whiteley with Ciceal Lev and Gord Mowat)