When Shakespeare and the blues meet

Juxtaposing Edmonton’s Graham Guest and Toronto’s Raoul Bhaneja at first seems a bit bizarre.

Guest, who dubs himself a “Parkland boy,” is regarded by the music industry as an elite blues and roots pianist/organist.

Bhaneja, a Toronto-based Shakespearean actor, is also frontman/harmonica player for the Maple Blues award-winning Raoul and The Big Time, a jump blues 1950s style band.

Blues and the Bard huh?

“I’m a Gemini. I have a dual personality,” laughs Bhaneja.

“Seriously, I’ve always felt that Shakespeare and the blues are closely aligned. Theatre is about telling stories. Blues at its core is about telling stories. Blues tells the audience what’s in the heart and mind, and that’s what Shakespeare does,” he adds.

Together, the opposites-attract duo plan to drop a bucket of dynamite blues and roots at the Arden Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 8 as masterminds of the fictional The Legendary Miles Johnson.

While Bhaneja’s one-man Hamlet {Solo}, featured at the Arden Theatre this coming Friday has garnered stunning reviews across the country, and The Big Time has been anointed with several award nominations, Guest is one of those cool cats that has maintained a fairly low public profile – at least locally.

So what makes them click? “We’re both very intellectual. We talk music just as easily as we talk foreign policy and we’ve become personal friends,” Guest explains.

Make no mistake. Guest is a formidable musician and is one of the most sought after studio musicians in the country. Shifting easily from blues, jazz and pop to country and rock and roll, he has recorded about 50 albums.

A former Old Scona High student, he developed his chops the old-fashioned way forgoing school in his late teens for the club circuit.

Recording his own material, however, eluded him until a chance meeting with Bhaneja.

Exactly a decade ago, Guest was under contract as a full-time tour pianist for blues artist Sue Foley. She was opening for B.B. King in a sold-out concert at Massey Hall.

Foley’s drummer was Tom Bona. Coincidentally, Bona was also drummer for The Big Time and he invited Bhaneja backstage to meet King, Foley and Guest.

The duo realized an instant chemistry, and mentioned they had been amassing original material that didn’t fit into any of their other projects. Why not create an avant-garde project just for odds and ends?

The self-titled The Legendary Miles Johnson, a fluid, unstructured 12-track was recorded at Rogue Studios and released in both Edmonton and Toronto in 2006.

There was the funky, full-band Last Time I Left New Orleans and the touching soldier’s story Blood on My Hands. But it was the light-hearted Bacon and Eggs that received a lot of airplay.

“It’s fun and silly. It’s about a guy who goes to breakfast, and it was based on a story that happened to me when I took a friend out to breakfast on the West Coast. We went to an organic green restaurant and he just wanted bacon and eggs.”

So far the duo has only recorded one album, but it’s proven to be a strong template for their association.

“Raoul has a great connection with audiences. Because he has a background in acting, he has a great command of the stage and he takes the performance where he wants to go. He is controlled and focused. I roll the dice a bit more. I bring a bit more chaos.”