Diana Braithwaite is a Canadian

electric blues Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplifier, amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the ...

singer, songwriter and screenwriter. She is a multiple

Maple Blues Award The Maple Blues Awards are Canada’s blues awards, "honouring the finest in Canadian blues". They are the only comprehensive national best in blues awards program. The program's goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outs ...

winner. More recently she has teamed up with Chris Whiteley and they have been acclaimed as "blues icons" by the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'', and collectively have won nine Maple Blues Awards and had six

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

nominations. Although they are little known in the United States, Diana Braithwaite and Chris Whiteley are mainstays of the Canadian blues scene.

Life and career

Braithwaite is a

Black Canadian Black Canadians (also known as Caribbean-Canadians or Afro-Canadians) are people of full or partial sub-Saharan African descent who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin, though t ...

and a descendant of the

Wellington County, Ontario Wellington County is a county located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada and is part of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The County, made up of two towns and five townships, is predominantly rural in nature. However many of the residents in the so ...

pioneers. Her ancestors escaped slavery in America through the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...

, and lived in the first African-Canadian pioneer settlement in Ontario. She was born and grew up in Toronto, as the second youngest of six children. She began performing professionally as a singer-songwriter in her teenage years, and opened

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...

in Toronto, before touring as

Albert Collins Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993),Skeely, Richard. "Albert Collins: Biography" Allmusic.com. was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. ...

's opening act. In 1999, Braithwaite performed at

Lilith Fair Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 ...

. In the same year, she released her debut album, ''In This Time''. Her solo shows have seen her share the stage with Mel Brown, T-Model Ford and

Jeff Healey Norman Jeffrey Healey (March 25, 1966 – March 2, 2008) was a Canadian blues, rock and jazz singer, guitarist, and songwriter who attained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. He reached No. 5 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart with " Ang ...

, and she issued a single in the UK and Europe entitled, "

Rollin' and Tumblin' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (or "Roll and Tumble Blues") is a blues standard first recorded by American singer-guitarist Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929. Called a "great Delta blues classic", it has been interpreted by hundreds of Delta and Chicago b ...

". Braithwaite performs with multi-instrumentalist

Chris Whiteley Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name * Chris Abani (born 1966), N ...

. The duo recorded live at

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England, with Bob Hall. Braithwaite and Whiteley have often worked together over the years, and in 2007 they released the album ''Morning Sun'', a collection of original songs penned in a musical styling reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s. It was issued by

Electro-Fi Records Electro-Fi Records is a Canadian award-winning independent record label founded in 1996, based in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which specializes in the release of blues records. History Electro-Fi Records was founded in 1996 by Andrew Gallowa ...

. They then toured North America, Europe, and the UK. ''Night Bird Blues'' (2009) had a five-week promotional tour in the UK, Russia, and Europe. The album peaked at number 2 on

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its s ...

. The follow-up release, ''Deltaphonic'', reached number 1 on the same network. They performed at the Great British R & B Festival in

Colne Colne () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England. Located northeast of Nelson, north-east of Burnley, east of Preston and west of Leeds. The town should not be confused with the unrelated Colne Val ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England in 2011, and the Monaghan Harvest Blues Festival in Ireland, plus the Hudson River Park Blues Festival in New York City, and had appearances on

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

. Their fifth joint album, ''Blues Stories'', was released by Big City Blues Records in 2014. It contained a mixture of original songs and cover versions of older numbers.

Awards

Braithwaite and Whiteley were named "Songwriter of the Year" at the 13th

Maple Blues Awards The Maple Blues Awards are Canada’s blues awards, "honouring the finest in Canadian blues". They are the only comprehensive national best in blues awards program. The program's goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outs ...

. Braithwaite is also the winner of the African-American Women In The Arts Award.

Films

Braithwaite’s film, ''Underground to Canada'', aired on national television. ''Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad'', a 1994 film produced by Atlantis Films was nominated for a

CableACE Award The CableACE Award (earlier known as the ACE Awards; ACE was an acronym for "Award for Cable Excellence") is a defunct award that was given by what was then the National Cable Television Association from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in Amer ...

. Her songs, "Bad Luck Man" and "Blame It on the Bourbon", were featured on the soundtrack ''Gracie'', which won a

Gemini Award The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...

for Best Short Drama. ''Survivors'' was nominated for a Gemini Award and won the

Golden Sheaf Award Yorkton Film Festival (YFF) is an annual film festival held in late May in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 1947, the Yorkton Film Council (YFC) was founded and in 1950 the first international documentary film festival officially opened in we ...

for 'best musical score'.

Family

Her mother, Rella Braithwaite (née Aylestock), has written a number of books on African-Canadian history.

Discography

Albums

References

External links

*
Video of Braithwaite and Whiteley performing "Rollin' and Tumblin'"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Braithwaite, Diana Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century Black Canadian women singers Musicians from Toronto Writers from Toronto Electric blues musicians Canadian blues singers Canadian women songwriters Canadian women screenwriters 20th-century Black Canadian women singers