“Masterful and amazing!” ~ Tampa Acoustic Music Exchange
Ken Whiteley has been playing folk, blues, gospel and other roots traditions at the highest level for well over fifty years. He has received many awards including a Canadian Folk Music Award, 7 Juno nominations, 18 Maple Blues nominations, a Genie Award (for Best Song in a Canadian Film) and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Mariposa Folk Festival, The Maple Blues Awards and Folk Music Ontario but ultimately for Ken his music is all about making connection. He loves to get people singing with him whether he’s on a concert stage, a folk festival, a church service or a yoga ashram.
Ken has made over 32 albums and his most recent one, “Long Time Travelling” was just nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award as Best Traditional Album this year. He has written over 400 songs that have won numerous awards and been covered by more than a dozen artists. Ken is a living link to the traditions of people he has sung and played with including Pete Seeger, The Georgia Sea Island Singers, Tom Paxton, John Hammond Jr., Blind John Davis and many others. He brings this vast experience to each performance as a way to allow all of us to come together through the power of song.
In February 2025, I slipped on ice and fractured a bone in his ankle. Unable to walk for a month, I sat down, picked up my guitar, and soon began writing. What emerged is my 37th album, “Keep Going”. Keeping going in these troubled times is an expression of powerful determination and survival, tempered by the recognition of earthly transience. I immersed myself in old blues and gospel tunes and that message kept coming up. May listeners also find the inspiration to keep going.
Album cover art by Andres Gutierrez
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. I sing and play acoustic guitars, resophonic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, Hammond organ, piano, mandola, mandocello, harmonica, string bass, electric bass, and washboard across the 12 tracks – joined by a small group of trusted collaborators including vocalist Ciceal Levy, drummer Bucky Berger, brother Chris Whiteley on harmonica and cornet, and bassist Gord Mowat. One of the album’s moving moments is ‘Reaching Higher,’ featuring the late vocalist Betty Richardson – Jackie Richardson’s younger sister, who passed away in 2018. I had this demo with Betty and knew that it was the time to polish it up and send it out to the world. Guest vocalists Eve Goldberg and Pat Patrick appear on the closing Eve co-write ‘At The End Of The Day,’ a twilight meditation on transition and the voices we hear at the edge of night.
From the lead track ‘Everybody’s Got to Be Tried’ – built from a phrase remembered from Appalachian banjo legend Frank Proffitt and performed on a 1928 National guitar – to the mandolin-quartet arrangement of Noah Lewis’s 1929 jug stomper ‘Going to German, I’m drawing the unbroken lines between the music of the past and the challenges of the present. “It’s heartbreaking that the systemic imprisonment of young people of colour is still with us,” I write in the notes. “What I embrace in this song is the affirmation that ‘I’ll be back some old day.’ Keep going.”
You can purchase the new album (and any other of Ken’s music) RIGHT HERE!
Recording “Keep Going” with my 1941 National
I’ve got 2 new videos to accompany the release of the new album. One is the title track, “Keep Going”. This one comes right out of my broken ankle experience of Feb/March 2025. It features great backup vocals from Ciceal Levy.
The other is a lyric video of “At The End of the Day”, the album’s closing track. Watch it HERE!
It’s always great if you “like” or even better leave a comment with the videos; it algorithmically improves the chances that others may see it.
Ciceal Levy recording Keep Going
Your invited to Ken’s 75th Birthday Bash!
On May 2nd at Hugh’s Room Live I will be celebrating the release of the album and my 75th birthday! I will have 3 of my favourite singers spreading beautiful harmony; Ciceal Levy, David Wall and Pat Patrick. I will have an outstanding band with my son, Ben Whiteley on bass, my nephew Jesse Whiteley on piano and organ and longtime friend, Bucky Berger on drums and percussion. Don’t be surprised if a few more musician guests stop by as well. And there will be cake!
David Wall, Pat Patrick, Amoy Levy (Ciceal’s fabulous late sister), Bucky Berger with me.
May 2 Toronto, ON Hugh’s Room Live 75th Birthday Bash and cd celebration concert with Bucky Berger, Ben Whiteley, Jesse Whiteley, David Wall, Ciceal Levy, Pat Patrick
