Biography
Diana Braithwaite emerged during the 2000s as a genuine vocalist and one of the scarce Canadian women rooted in the blues idiom. Raised in a musical household in Toronto, Ontario, she traces her maternal lineage to ancestors who reached Canada from the southern United States along the Underground Railroad. Her father, born in Montreal, encountered repeated barriers to employment and ultimately supported the household by cycling through neighborhoods to gather scrap metal until the family received an acre of rocky farmland in the Glenallen region. Drawn to performance through repeated listening to acoustic Delta blues and country-and-western discs, she gained her initial ensemble experience alongside brothers Victor and Cecil plus sister Charlane. A separate solo path opened during her teenage years when she shared bills with the Chaser Blues Band, notably supporting John Lee Hooker at Toronto’s Brunswick House and establishing herself as a professional blues interpreter. Albert Collins later selected her as an opening act on tour, after which she worked alongside Mel Brown, Jeff Healey, Eddy Clearwater, T-Model Ford, Robert Cray, Tracy Chapman, Big Bill Morganfield, Pinetop Perkins, and Buddy Guy. In 1999 Sarah McLachlan tapped her to perform on the Canadian edition of Lilith Fair. Independently she issued the album Carry My Name and joined guitarist, cornetist, and harmonicist Chris Whiteley for the Electro-Fi duet recordings Morning Sun (2007) and Night Bird Blues (2009), both of which honor the acoustic rural blues of the 1930s and 1940s. She received the African-American Women In The Arts Award in Chicago, Illinois, and two of her original compositions, “Bad Luck Man” and “Blame It on the Bourbon,” appeared on the soundtrack of the Gemini-winning film Gracie, which earned the Yorkton Golden Sheaf Award for Best Musical Score.
Albums
