Kashmar Enjoying Career Boost

Where: Edmonton's Labatt Blues Festival, Heritage Amphitheatre
When: Tonight

EDMONTON - It was almost two decades ago that harmonica ace Mitch Kashmar first laid down a slate of down-and-dirty blues for Edmonton music fans.

At the time, the young musician was fronting a hot little band from southern California called The Pontiax. It was associated with a scene that had given birth to The Blasters, James Harman and his Dangerous Gentlemans, Los Lobos, Rod Piazza and the Hollywood Fats Band, among others.

"It was a roots renaissance back then," recalls Kashmar, who recognizes the fact that he was fortunate to burst onto the scene when he did.

At 46, Kashmar is enjoying a career that he says "has been kicked up to another level." Not so for players of the generation right behind him.

"I know so many musicians, 10 or 12 years younger than me, who are having a rough time. Look at the price of vintage gear -- it's obscene. You need to be a doctor or lawyer to afford amps and instruments of a certain quality.

"Plus they don't have the places to play anymore. In the late '80s, we all benefited from the success of acts like Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray and Los Lobos, who were all on the charts. It trickled down to us. They say that things come in 20-year cycles, so we can hope things turn around for younger musicians."

The bandleader bit on the harp early in his teens and started to find his singing voice a few years later.

"If I had been left to my own devices I would still be in the corner with my shades on and just playing harp. But some friends encouraged me to sing and I overcame that fear," says Kashmar, who singles out Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson as a mentor.

"I've had a lot of special times with Kim. We're from the same area, and although he's older than me, he'd always come back to visit his parents and would show up at gigs and sit in with the local cats he had played with when he was coming up.

"By that time I was playing with those same guys. I spent the night of my 21st birthday with Kim and I had never stayed up that late in my life."

Kashmar last appeared at the Labatt Blues Fest in 2003 with a band fronted by his guitar-playing buddy Junior Watson.

These days he splits his time fronting his own quintet with his membership in a couple of other ensembles and as a recording artist for the Delta Groove label. Tonight, his quintet will roll through a selection of material drawing on jump blues and jazz-tinged instrumentals.

"One gig that dropped out of the sky on me recently was with the band War," says Kashmar of the group that had major hits in the '70s with Why Can't We Be Friends and Lowrider, as well as a big score with Eric Burdon on Spill The Wine. Lee Oskar, who played the Labatt Blues Fest last summer with Mark Hummel's Harmonica Blow-out, was the original harp player in that band.

"These days between the moonlighting with War, getting the word that I'll be doing another album for Delta Groove early next year and gigging with my own band is all-consuming."