Colin James

Regina, a borrowed name and a Grade 10 exit

He was born Colin James Munn in Regina, Saskatchewan, on 17 August 1964, into a household that pushed music at him early. He left school in Grade 10 and worked the prairie circuit as a teenager, which is how he came to open for Stevie Ray Vaughan in Regina in 1983. The pairing became the founding anecdote of his career: Vaughan reportedly advised him to drop Munn as a stage name on the grounds that it came out of arena speakers sounding like "Mud". He kept the first two names and has worked under them since.

That apprenticeship — Vaughan as a mentor rather than a one-night bill — shaped the guitar playing more than any Canadian contemporary did. It also fixed his register early: a Texas-informed blues-rock tone, sung in a voice strong enough to carry pop radio, which is what happened next.

The debut, and what followed it

His self-titled debut arrived in 1988 and became the fastest-selling album in Canadian history to that point, delivering his first Juno. Sudden Stop followed in 1990 and pushed him beyond the border, with a single that reached number three on US radio. Two Juno wins for Male Vocalist of the Year, in 1991 and 1996, came out of that run.

Then he took the swerve that still defines him for a chunk of his audience. Colin James and the Little Big Band, released in 1993, put a horn section behind him and ran jump blues and swing material through a rock player's hands. It landed well enough to be credited with kicking off the swing revival that broke commercially a few years later in the United States, and it produced sequels in 1998 and 2006 plus a Christmas edition in 2007.

The later catalogue has pulled steadily back towards the blues proper. Blue Highways in 2016 spent ten weeks at number one on the Roots Music Report blues chart. Miles to Go followed in 2018. Open Road, in 2021, won the Juno for Blues Album of the Year in 2022 and earned him a first Blues Foundation nomination in the Blues Rock Album category, announced on 10 March 2023 ahead of the Memphis ceremony that May. The running totals now stand at 21 studio albums, eight Junos and 31 Maple Blues Awards; he was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2013 and made a member of the Order of British Columbia in 2024.

Chasing the Sun

The current record is Chasing the Sun, announced on 18 June 2024 and released on 23 August 2024 by Stony Plain Records — days after his sixtieth birthday. It runs eleven tracks, seven of them originals and four covers, produced and arranged by James with Colin Linden and recorded between Nashville and Vancouver.

The guest list is the most loaded of his career: Lucinda Williams on vocals, Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica, Darryl Jones on bass, Charley Drayton on drums, and Ann and Regina McCrary supplying the gospel end. Reviews across the blues press were broadly positive, reading it as a mature, well-made record rather than a late-career coast — one notice argued it might be the best thing he has done. It is also, in retrospect, the album he barely got to tour.

A scooter, a hit-and-run and a scaphoid

The US run behind Chasing the Sun ended abruptly. He played the Niagara Falls Blues Festival in New York on a Saturday night in September 2024 and was hit the following day — Sunday 15 September — in what he has described as a hit-and-run while riding a scooter on his way to buy a helmet. His team confirmed on 17 September that the remaining American dates were off, including a show at Jimmy's Jazz and Blues Club in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that was due the next night, and told ticket-holders to seek refunds.

The damage was to a foot and a wrist, and the wrist was the problem: his scaphoid needed surgical repair, in the hand he plays with. He has said he worked his way back by starting on mandolin, because the shorter fret spacing was manageable while the guitar still was not. By the time the rebooked tour was announced on 12 December 2025 he was described as fully recovered.

Where he is in late 2026

The rescheduled Coast to Coast Tour ran 18 American cities from 17 April to 10 May 2026, with Matt Andersen and Terra Lightfoot along as fellow Canadians rather than hired support. It took in Bremerton, Bellingham and Edmonds in Washington, then Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago, St Louis, Columbus, Kent, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Sellersville, Annapolis, Old Saybrook, Albany, Natick and — closing the loop on 9 May — Jimmy's Jazz and Blues Club in Portsmouth, the venue he had been forced to cancel.

The Canadian summer was festival work: the Calgary Stampede's Big Four Roadhouse on 4 July, the FIFA Fan Festival at Hastings Park in Vancouver on 18 July, the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg in mid-August as part of the Burt Block Party, and Kerrfest in Oakville on 11 September.

The bigger development of the year is not a record. Playing the Changes: A Musician's Memoir was published by Random House Canada on 22 September 2026 and deliberately stops short of the 1988 debut, covering the Regina childhood and the years of scuffling instead of the hits. He promoted it through September on CBC's q with Tom Power, on CTV in Calgary and Saskatoon on 8 and 14 September, on Jann Arden's podcast, at Wordfest in Calgary and in conversation at The Exchange in Regina on 29 September, with a further book event booked at Supermarket Bar and Variety in Toronto on 3 December.

Autumn has been spent in Europe with a band: Haus Eifgen in Wermelskirchen on 2 November, Café De Kaai in Bergen op Zoom on 3 November for a Crossroads radio session, Café De Amer in Amen on 4 November, Bluesgarage in Isernhagen on 5 November, Soundcheck One in Waldbronn on 6 November, then Clamores in Madrid on 10 November and 16 Toneladas in Valencia on 11 November. From 13 to 20 November the trio format plays a Douro river cruise through Portugal and Spain, with two performances, a songwriters' circle and a meet-and-greet. Two Ontario casino shows close the year — Hard Rock Live in Ottawa on 4 December and Casino Rama on 5 December — and a French date at Paul B in Massy is on the books for 17 March 2027.

The repertoire on stage

Documented sets from 2026 run to around 13 songs. The Buffalo show at the Town Ballroom on 3 May opened with Going Up Country, Love Is Hard to Find and Just a Little Love. The Vancouver festival set on 18 July pulled from across the catalogue — Voodoo Thing, Freedom, Why'd You Lie?, Man's Gotta Be a Stone, Five Long Years, Johnny Coolman, the Fleetwood Mac reading of Oh Well, Just Came Back and Keep On Loving Me, Baby.

The blues trio configuration leans harder on the older blues material: Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Dreams Come and Go, Just a Little Love and the long-standing Five Long Years, with Van Morrison's Into the Mystic as the habitual encore. Festival slots have been running about 95 minutes — the Oakville set on 11 September was billed 21:30 to 23:05 — while theatre bills are tighter.