The crowd was groovin' to the sweet, soulful sound emanating from the railway platform. By the end of the show, they were on their feet, demanding just one more tune.
Diana Braithwaite and Chris Whiteley - headliners at the inaugural Railway Blues Festival - obliged, despite a tight schedule which had the Toronto-based tandem performing the next day in Nanaimo.
Their set included several Delta blues favourites such as Dust My Broom and I cried, and original numbers such as Mr. Subway Man, which appears on their 2006 collaborative album Morning Sun.
"We'll let this song speak for itself. You can just use your imagination," Whiteley told the crowd, Saturday at the Railway & Forestry Museum.
A Kansas-born musician proficient on guitar, horn, harmonica and trumpet, Whiteley has appeared on upwards of 150 recordings by the likes of Leon Redbone and John Hammond during three decades in the music business. He is a six-time Juno Award nominee who once appeared alongside Redbone on an episode of Saturday Night Live. Whiteley has previously performed in Prince George on CBC Radio's Vinyl Cafe show with Stuart McLean.
Last weekend was Braithwaite's first visit to northern B.C. - and her first performance from a railroad track.
"We've been in the business quite a while," Braithwaite said. "I myself worked quite a bit in Europe and the U.K. Now I'm getting back a bit more in North America. Kind of re-establishing back here."
Blessed with a powerful voice, Braithwaite has also shared the limelight with an impressive list of musicians, including John Lee Hooker, for whom she once opened in Toronto.
"It was great," Braithwaite recalls. "It was really an excellent time. I've always admired John Lee Hooker's style. I've met Magic Slim and the Teardrops, and Buddy Shaw - I worked with him - James Cotton, Albert Collins. Great people."
The Blues Underground Network of Prince George managed to secure Braithwaite and Whiteley in a relatively short span of time.
"We were very fortunate to get them here," said Earl Krushelnicki, festival organizer along with museum manager Shelley Sivell. "We've been trying to get them to Prince George for about a year-and-a-half now. And they will be coming back, probably in the fall of 2008."
Saturday's lineup also featured Layla Zoe, a Victoria musician who recently left an indelible mark in Scandinavia.
"She just won an international blues competition in Finland against some American, Australian and European talent," Krushelnicki said. "She was the only Canadian represented. She's been here once before when she was a relative unknown and played for Blues Underground, so she thought she'd help us out with our first Railway Blues Festival."
Harp Dog Brown and Jason Buie - collectively known as Good Dog Bad Dawg - closed the festival, which included local talents Single Car Garage, Karl Standeven, the Rae King Blues Band, the Kathy Frank Band and the Bad Breaks Blues Band.
"Prince George has six or seven blues bands in town, and that's more than some major cities have, so we're very fortunate," Krushelnicki said. "We have some wonderful talent here."
