Forget resident and musician Ken Hamm was recognized nationally thanks to an award from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently.
Hamm, who already has a Juno award to his name, was awarded the 2010 Great Canadian Blues Award from Saturday Night Blues (SNB), a CBC blues music show.
The 20th anniversary of the award, Hamm joins an extensive list of notables who had previously been awarded the prize, including Donny Walsh, Colin James, and Jeff Healey.
SNB show host Holger Petersen, himself quite a notable in the Canadian blues scene, made the presentation to Hamm along with show producer Dan Cherwoniak in Edmonton in late November.
The award, which is a people's choice award, is given by the show every year to Canadian blues music artists who through their lifetime have contributed significantly to the Canadian blues scene.
"The Great Canadian Blues Award was created because, 20 years ago, there was no other award recognizing blues artists in Canada," said Cherwoniak. "Since that time, the 'Blues Juno' was created, the Maple Blues Awards from the Toronto Blues Society, and other regional awards for blues artists."
The award is announced during the last four weeks of the season for the SNB show.
Listeners are invited to mail in and nominate any Canadian blues musician they feel is worthy of the prestigious award.
The nomination ballots also act as the vote for each performer.
"Some of the hundreds we receive are for artists who aren't Canadian, like B.B. King, and others are for someone like a friend or a brother who plays in a blues band at a local venue," Cherwoniak said. "But most of them name some really deserving and talented Canadian artists."
"Ken has been in the running for this award for quite a few years," Cherwoniak said. "Ken has a long history on SNB, and we have been playing selections of his music for quite a few years now."
Asked how Ken's 'election' went, Cherwoniak was thoughtful in his reply.
"Well, it would be a guess, we don't really keep numbers, and I think I would be hesitant to give them if I did," Cherwoniak said. "But I think it would be fair to say that Ken's support was significant out of the many hundreds of votes we received."
"Generally, in the award nominations, beyond the single nominations and nominations for people who aren't eligible, there are about 20 different, serious candidates," Cherwoniak said. "Out of that, maybe eight will end up coming on strong as the time gets short, so really it is a tight competition most of the time."
Once an artist has won the award, they cannot win it again. The website for Saturday Night Blues therefore holds a complete list of all the winners over the past 20 years, though it should be noted the list, as it is posted, is not in a chronological order.
Ken, himself quite an unassuming fellow despite his many successes in the music industry, said the entire thing took him by surprise.
"I first heard about it back in September, I was in Calgary, producing a record, and I got a call," Hamm said. "I went to my e-mail, and that was where I found out I had won."
"I kind of knew I was nominated, Heather's [Hamm] mom is a big CBC fan, and she sort of keeps tabs on what's going on," Hamm said. "But I get nominated for stuff from time to time, so I didn't pay that much attention."
"What's really impressive is that this is a 'people's choice' award, so I had just real listeners voting for me," Hamm said. "Most awards are industry awards, and you know those things tend to be really choreographed, but this is pretty cool."
"I am just totally surprised by it, and I'm really happy that so many people appreciate what I've been doing."
Ken and his wife Heather live in the community of Forget, where they operate Village Music.
Ken and Heather also teach music classes, when not abroad working with and producing or supporting other artist's projects.
SNB broadcasts Saturdays on CBC Radio 2 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Radio 1 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.
