Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon tours behind new album, “Shut Up & Play”

Interviews | Jul 21st, 2024

Toronzo Cannon - "Shut Up & Play!"
Image used with permission for review purposes.

When covid-19 shut down music venues in 2020, the blues singer Toronzo Cannon went back to driving a Chicago city bus to make ends meet. He was finally able to hang up the keys to the CTA conveyance not long thereafter and get back to his first true love.

“I had been gigging [for] 29 years altogether [in] the ‘part-time years,’ as they call it,” Cannon said recently via phone from New Hampshire, where his tour bus had pulled over. “But I’m glad that I had a job so I could still take care of my family. Even though…we were going through a divorce in the pandemic time [I] handled my business as a man, you know?”

That difficult divorce is just one of the topics Cannon tackles on his latest record, called “Shut Up & Play!”, out now on Alligator Records. “Message to My Daughter” was written as a musical letter to Cannon’s real-life daughter, caught in the family crossfire during her parents’ covid separation.

“You know, there is a certain blues in divorce—I think we can agree to that,” Cannon said, adding that sometimes our loved ones catch the “shrapnel” in especially difficult uncouplings. “Just because me and your mother have a problem, that doesn’t mean I have a problem with my daughter.”

The songwriter said several people advised him to not include the song on his new album. Bluesmen can sing all day long about being serial cheaters and “oh, my woman left me,” but getting more personal and heartfelt could be seen as a bit, well, un-blues-y.

Not only has Cannon’s daughter heard the song, she played piano for the recording.

“Just to have it in perpetuity, her playing on my album” makes the song even more precious, Cannon said. “So I’m hoping it lives way past my grandchildren—the song will live on.”

“Shut Up & Play!” is a righteous tour of not just the typical subjects of power blues (“Can’t Fix the World,” “I Hate Love,” “Got Me by the Short Hairs”) but of the genre’s many antecedents, be it protest music or the sounds of Black churches. The imprint of the gospel is unmistakable on “Had to Go Through It to Get to It”—a paean to previous generations who struggled—which its author says is far from a coincidence. Cannon said he set “Had to Go Through It to Get to It” to gospel strains as the words truly lent themselves to that type of vibe and rhythm.

“They’re like cousins that really don’t like each other but they are part of the same family,” he said of gospel and blues—even if one is considered sacred and the other “the devil’s music.” Indeed, “Had to Go Through It to Get to It” “was a celebration of the things that my father, myself, and the ancestors went through, which may be the reason that I am the guy I am today,” Cannon said.

But long before electric guitars and amps allowed players to fill arenas and stadiums, the blues was a decidedly simple, three-chord music that started out simply in the Mississippi Delta. Cannon pays tribute to those earlier days on “My Woman Loves Me Too Much,” which is just him, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. The bluesman said the song was his way of letting his audience know that 21st century blues doesn’t need to be all shredding and imitating Jimi Hendrix.

“There are other songs other than ‘my woman left me.’ … I’m sure there’s a certain amount of blues in that: ‘Wow, baby, I love you, but can I get a rest?’” he said of “My Woman Loves Me Too Much.” “That is a funny take on blues. There’s blues in everything; it just depends on how you structure it.”

Cannon is already several gigs into his current East Coast tour. He has big plans for his upcoming calendar, including potentially some shows in China later this year.

“Things are rolling along. I’m just going one gig at a time and keeping it all together,” he said.

The first time I saw Cannon was at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago in 2019. The evening was doubly special as the owner of the establishment happened to be in the house, joining Cannon’s ensemble for a few songs.

“It’s his house!” Cannon said of the living legend, now 87 and still very much on his game. “He’s the last of that era—the Muddy Waters era. He knew all of those guys: Jimmy Reed, Howling Wolf, Hubert Sumlin. So whenever a guy like that wants to come on stage,” you jump at the chance, he said.

The two players’ relationship wasn’t just a one-off. Cannon said Guy once gave him a shoutout on stage after being in Toronto and hearing Cannon’s song “Walk It Off” playing on SiriusXM while in the Canadian metropolis.

“[Guy] was in Toronto, [and] because my name is Toronzo, he said ‘It fits,’” Cannon related. “He said this on stage in front of everybody, and I got it on videotape.

“If he can remember me, that means somebody else might remember me too. It felt special.”

Though he has played with the old masters, when it’s his turn to share wisdom with newer adherents to the blues, Cannon has two key pieces of advice: Write your own songs, and get a passport. Several years ago, Cannon offered such guidance to an artist named Hadden Sayers, who had opened for him on several dates.

“Nine months later, I’m in France, and he’s in the lobby of the hotel we were staying in playing acoustic guitar,” Cannon said of meeting up with Sayers overseas. “And he said, ‘Thank you, Mister Cannon, I got my passport!’ I like to see the ending of the story, the ending of the advice—when it works out.”

Speaking of his travels, Cannon said that even if his luggage gets lost, the show will still go on so long as he has a guitar and amp—so long as it’s left-handed for the southpaw.

Music-lovers who come to shows on the current tour will be in for some good times as well as some thought-provoking songs that speak emotional truths that audiences can connect with and recognize from experiences in their own lives.

“We gonna laugh, we gonna think a little bit, we gonna say, you know I never heard it put that way before,” he said.

And, if he plays his sardonic song “Insurance,” the lyrical laughs about going for a colonoscopy will hopefully nudge men of a certain age—or any age—to get their backsides checked out soon.

“When they give you that glycerine to drink, put in some Crystal Light lemonade; it takes away the aftertaste,” he said. “It’s going to clean you out, brother! They’re in and out and they give you pictures too.”

(Cannon offered to “trade” such photos when the time for my own examination comes.)

“It’s a public service announcement too, especially for men,” he said. “And when I do sing that song, I let people know it’s funny, but it’s the truth. If you haven’t had one, go schedule one. Don’t give your life away!”

Cannon, 56, said a benefit of getting a bit older isn’t just attaining the wisdom of age but also embracing the truth, no matter how painful—and venting it through his music. This is especially apropos when it comes to embracing the pain of telling his daughter about the divorce, as related in “Message to My Daughter.” He shares that the song’s original narrative was much darker, with the daughter peering down into the narrator/father’s grave. However, given the positive turn of the relationship between Cannon and his daughter in real life, he and cowriter Bruce Iglauer opted for the song’s happier ending.

“The fact is that we repaired our relationship. She’s living with me now,” Cannon said, adding that his daughter, who recently graduated from DePaul University in Chicago, has some potential job leads in Los Angeles. “I kind of went back, and that’s the lyric that I came up with: ‘There can still be love in a broken family.’

“Love can be manifested in any way.”

To purchase “Shut Up & Play!”, and to check out upcoming tour dates, go to https://www.toronzocannon.com/.

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