The Underground Railroad Music Festival returns to Drayton this year, with new acts and a new angle on the history of the early black pioneers of the region.
The fourth annual festival will be held on Aug. 18 at Centennial Park.
Organizer Diana Braithwaite says last summer’s event, the first held in Drayton, was the largest so far.
“Every year the festival is growing in numbers,” said Braithwaite, who estimates between 500 and 600 people attended over the course of the day-long event in 2011.
The first two festivals were held in nearby Glen Allen, which was considered a main terminus of the Underground Railroad, the term for a series of safe houses and individuals who helped black slaves reach Canada from the United States in the early 1800s.
Braithwaite says the Drayton location provides several advantages.
“We have more parking and it’s just such a nice park. It also helps that we’re close to the shops in town,” said Braithwaite, who adds the festival is continuing to evolve.
“Each year we try to add a bit of different entertainment and also a bit of interesting history.”
Guest speaker Timothy Epp will provide this year’s historical element, with a talk on the connection between the early African-American pioneers and the local Mennonite community. Braithwaite said the area Mennonite community played a part in helping the former slaves and freed blacks who came to this area get settled.
“They shared their farming expertise and techniques and eventually quite a few of them became friends,” said Braithwaite.
The line-up for the 2012 festival features several returning musical acts, including North Carolina soul artist Curley Bridges, acoustic blues master Harrison Kennedy, crooner Donavan Locke and Braithwaite, based out of Toronto, and her partner Chris Whiteley.
“This year we have a really exciting new group, an electric blues band called Blackburn,” said Braithwaite, adding the Toronto-based group has performed across Canada and internationally. “They’re a really rockin, up-tempo band.”
Definitely new for the festival is an old-time country bluegrass “jamboree,” featuring two-time Juno Award-winner Jenny Whiteley, along with Juno-nominee Amy Milan, Dan Whiteley and Joey Wright.
“We felt that since we were in the country, we should celebrate that type of music too,” said Braithwaite.
The rest of the line-up for the 2012 show includes Melissa Adamson and the Weary Travellers, winners of the Harry Jerome Award for Arts, and Miss Angel, billed as the “Mississippi Delta Queen of the Blues,” who will appear with Colin White.
Early settlements
At its peak in 1840, the Queen’s Bush settlement was home to some 2,000 black settlers. But the settlement died out almost as quickly as it began, when the government ordered the area surveyed and black settlers could not afford to buy the land they had settled.
When slavery was abolished south of the border in 1865, most black settlers returned home to their native land. Yet some black settlers remained in former Peel Township and continued farming well into the 20th century.
A few descendants of those settlers still call Waterloo and Wellington County home, but most are widely dispersed across Ontario and beyond.
Braithwaite’s mother Rella, a descendant of the original settlers, attended past festivals.
Together with musician Chris Whiteley, Braithwaite organizes the festival, which annually attracts musicians from across Canada and the U.S., bringing a message of freedom and dedication through gospel, folk, jazz and blues music and prayer.
Tickets are available at www.ticketscene.ca/events/5977. For more information visit www.braithwaiteandwhiteley.com or call 416-857-4951.
