Hugh's Room is a live music venue in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada."Hugh's Room anchored Toronto’s grassroots folk scene"
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

'', January 10, 2017. Formerly on Dundas Street West until 2020, as of July 2023 it has relocated to Broadview Avenue in the city's East Chinatown neighbourhood. The club was opened in 2001 by Richard Carson and named in memory of his brother Hugh, a former folk musician who had dreamed of opening his own performance venue before his death of cancer in 1999. Primarily a

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

club, Hugh's Room also sometimes booked

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

, classical and

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

artists as well."Music community reeling from closure of west-end venue Hugh's Room"

CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

, January 8, 2017. Noted artists who have performed at the club include

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

Serena Ryder Serena Lauren Ryder (born December 8, 1982) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. Born in Toronto, she grew up in Millbrook, Ontario. Ryder first gained national recognition with her ballad "Weak in the Knees" in 2007 and has released eight studio ...

Sylvia Tyson Sylvia Tyson, (''née'' Fricker; born 19 September 1940) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and broadcaster. She is best known as part of the folk duo Ian & Sylvia, with Ian Tyson. Since 1993, she has been a member of the all-female folk ...

Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and s ...

Jane Siberry Jane Siberry ( ; ; born 12 October 1955) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as "Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", "One More Colour" and "Calling All Angels (Jane Siberry song), Calling All Angels". She performed the theme so ...

Ron Sexsmith Ronald Eldon Sexsmith (born January 8, 1964) is a Canadian singer-songwriter from St. Catharines, Ontario. He was the songwriter of the year at the 2005 Juno Awards. He began releasing recordings of his own material in 1985 at age 21, and has ...

Maria Muldaur Maria Muldaur (born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato; September 12, 1942) is an American folk and blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1973 hit song " Midnight at the Oasis" and h ...

and

Richie Havens Richard Pierce Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk music, folk, soul music, soul (both of which he frequently cover song, covered), and rhythm and b ...

. Odetta's performance at the venue, on October 25, 2008, was her last live performance before her death on December 2 that year. On January 8, 2017, Hugh's Room closed its doors for financial reasons. Several days later, a community committee announced plans to restructure the venue's accumulated debt and reopen. The club reopened in April 2017, following a successful fundraising initiative and the formation of a non-profit committee to manage the venue."Hugh's Room to reopen April 19"
''

'', March 9, 2017. The new corporation is called Hugh's Room Live. In 2020, the Hugh's Room management announced that it was looking for a new building as it could not secure an affordable lease at the site it had been using. After a lengthy effort and the support of over 1,000 individual donors, Hugh's Room secured its new home at 296 Broadview Avenue in the Riverdale/East Chinatown neighbourhood of the city's East End. In addition to operating as an independent and not-for-profit charitable music venue, Hugh's Room has plans to build their new larger facility into a community based music "hub" for the development of new talent in addition to its many legacy artists.

References

External links

Hugh's Room
Music venues in Toronto Restaurants in Toronto Nightclubs in Toronto Blues venues Folk music venues in Canada 2001 establishments in Ontario {{Canada-restaurant-stub