How Did Triple Maple Blues Award-Winner Miss Emily become one of Canada's Best Kept Secrets?
Alex Bonyun, Feb 15, 2023
Miss Emily has a powerhouse voice admired by music industry giants like Gene Simmons of KISS and Rob of the Tragically Hip. She took home three Maple Blues Awards as the 2020 event, and followed that up with a 2022 JUNO Award nomination. So what's her secret?
Well a big part of it has been sticking close to home. She’s spent most of her career performing in and around Kingston, Ontario, honing her craft but also sitting below the radar of most blues loving Canadians. The reason for her aversion to travel in the past is quite simple. As a single mom of a now 16-year-old daughter, the life of a travelling blues performer wasn’t a feasible proposition. Of course, now that her daughter is well into her teens, Miss Emily has been able to perform outside of her hometown, in Toronto, across Canada, and even for short stints overseas.
“It’s been kind of fun to re-enter the music world in many ways, because it’s a different level for me, and I’ve had no problem having a super modest career because it still paid the bills," says Miss Emily. “I’ve been able to perform my own music for the most part in recent years, and support myself and my daughter, and have a mortgage and do all these things that I think a lot of full-time artists in this country don’t get to do full-time. They have to have a side hustle, and I knew that having a side hustle was just not my jam.”
Now as she’s starting to branch out and share her talent with a wider audience, she’s discovering that the music world is just as excited as she is to share her sound. This came in the form of three Maple Blues Award wins and a 2022 JUNO nomination for her latest album, Live at the Isabel.
"I didn’t think that mattered to me, but when found out that I was nominated for the blues awards, I was over the moon ecstatic," says Emily. “I think it might be top three greatest moments of my life. Not winning the awards, but finding out I was nominated, just to be recognized.”
On March 3 & 4 you’ll have your chance to see why the Canadian blues community is raving about Miss Emily and her phenomenal voice as she’d joined by guitarist Russell Broom in the Engineered Air Theatre as part of PCL Blues. Learn more and get your tickets today!
Alex Bonyun
Alex Bonyun is Communications Manager for Arts Commons. Her interests range from writing about the arts, to photography, and painting tiny things. She’s even authored a kids’ book for imaginative early readers. Her philosophy is that everyone has a story worth sharing.