Home - Ken Whiteley

“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.

Long Time Travelling song introductions here.

It’s been a great summer and I’m looking forward to a great fall. Highlights included a return to the Mariposa Folk Festival and the Kitchener Blues Festival plus album production of a project called Afro Métis Nation Anthem and nearing completion of a new album of my own.

My concert at Mariposa went very well with an Allstar band including Bucky Berger (drums), Ciceal Levy (vocals, percussion), Rob McLaren (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin) and Ben Whiteley (string bass). There was a great workshop called “That’s When I Need A Song” with Rick Fines, Colin Linden, Ellen Froese and Ben and I. I also got to participate in the tribute to Bruce Cockburn as he was inducted into the Mariposa Hall of Fame.

Ciceal Levy, Ben Whiteley, Ken Whiteley, Rob McLaren, Bucky Berger

Talking with Bruce Cockburn after the sound check for his Hall of Fame induction.

Ken Whiteley, Colin Linden, Ben Whiteley

I’m very excited about my new album, Unseen Hands – 12 songs 12 strings. As the title suggests, all 12 songs feature me playing 12 string guitar and there is lots more too! The recordings all speak to place in one way or another – from the little patch of ground in downtown Toronto where I live, a conversation with the moon, April in Paris, looking at the stars, the soil, the planet and how we all connect. As well as twelve string I play slide, tenor guitar, tenor mandolin, Hammond organ, vibraphone, pianos, washboard and sing harmony along with Ciceal Levy, Adrienne Mackenzie and Georgia Harmer singing. Ben Whiteley and Gord Mowat play bass, Bucky Berger plays drums, Tom Sczesniak is on accordion and Sundar Vishwanathan on bansouri flute and soprano sax. Watch for it’s release later this fall.