Sunday wilde

Is the Canadian blues singer and pianist Sunday Wild possessed by men? If you read the song titles would you start thinking in any case. The opener "That Man Drives Me Mad" or "Show Me A Man" and "I Can't Shake That Guy" all numbers which they passionate manner sings about men. Singing is perhaps more civilized expressed, because this often goes hand in hand with a lot of Sighs, moan and howl.

This shows that Sunday is a and all passion as she sings her songs. The atmosphere of the "sassy" singers of the 1920s and 1930s comes back if you go to this cd listening. Sunday is from Northern Ontario and she began her career in small clubs and coffee houses, but currently plays on many a great festival. That has them due to the intensity of her performances, an intensity that you find on this cd clearly can.

Her voice resembles that of Sue Foley, and fits wonderfully well with the kind of old time jazzy blues that she makes. Her examples are the singers like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. from those early years who, like she does now, blues and jazz were able to mix up a perfect whole.

That they, as in the opening song "That Man Drives Me Mad" and later in "Don't Bother Me" very violently and agitated sings, growls and grauwt, does not alter the fact that they are in a song as "Rest My Weary Heart." and "Time To Say Goodbye" is also her sensitive side. At such times reminds them to the great Billy Holliday. In-depth texts, a voice that drips of emotion and just that perfect dosage between blues and jazz to create "What Man ..." a strong blues plate, extra suitable for listening in the late hours of the morning.

- Roots Time (Belg)

Sunday Wilde’s newest CD is a soulful mix of tormented love, no good men and

strong women that survive.

A heady concoction of new meets old, Wildes own

unique voice mixes sweet innocence with a dusky raspy edge that conjures up

images of early Ethel Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

The opening song

“That man drives me mad” is a hard driving honkey tonk tune while Sundays

Midnight Blues invokes the quintessential metaphor of the dank ,smoke filled

bar, last call and a lone piano player while Sunday sings to a friendless

room.

Time to say Goodbye rounds out this collection with a lilting

expressive ballad complemented by David West’s classical guitar accompaniment

and Ronnie Howard on Bass.
- American Blues Blog

The honky tonk piano beats out its version of reveille and with four quick breaths, Sunday Wilde revs up ‘What Man!?? Oh THAT Man!!’. Things start of with such a bang that the title lands in the first track “THAT Man Drives Me Mad”. Finding the break pedal on the album is not an option on this particular Sunday drive. Ms. Wilde shakes, rattles, glides and purrs across the landscape. The songs destinations are often obvious as in the opening track, “I Can’t Shake That Guy” and “Show Me A Man” but more often implied (“Our Deal Is Done”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Rest My Weary Heart”). Sunday Wilde drinks deep from the well that feed blues, soul and rock streams. The water that runs out tastes like Southern Comfort to some and she joins fellow partakers with the most clear lineage on “Manning Street Sweet Talker”.
The emotion that pours out of Sunday Wilde clears a path on every track. She sings pains and pleasures, dreams and decisions. Wrapping the vocals with matching instrumental textures are Ronnie Hayward on upright bass and David West on guitar. As piano bass notes the rhythm while Hayward’s bass slowly taps out riffs, squeezing the most out of each note. Sunday Wilde is up for The Independent Music Award in Canada and you can lend you support support by voting here. Danny McCloskey - The Alternate Root Magazine

The honky tonk piano beats out its version of reveille and with four quick breaths, Sunday Wilde revs up ‘What Man!?? Oh THAT Man!!’. Things start of with such a bang that the title lands in the first track “THAT Man Drives Me Mad”. Finding the break pedal on the album is not an option on this particular Sunday drive. Ms. Wilde shakes, rattles, glides and purrs across the landscape. The songs destinations are often obvious as in the opening track, “I Can’t Shake That Guy” and “Show Me A Man” but more often implied (“Our Deal Is Done”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Rest My Weary Heart”). Sunday Wilde drinks deep from the well that feed blues, soul and rock streams. The water that runs out tastes like Southern Comfort to some and she joins fellow partakers with the most clear lineage on “Manning Street Sweet Talker”.
The emotion that pours out of Sunday Wilde clears a path on every track. She sings pains and pleasures, dreams and decisions. Wrapping the vocals with matching instrumental textures are Ronnie Hayward on upright bass and David West on guitar. As piano bass notes the rhythm while Hayward’s bass slowly taps out riffs, squeezing the most out of each note. Sunday Wilde is up for The Independent Music Award in Canada and you can lend you support support by voting here. Danny McCloskey - The Alternate Root Magazine

The honky tonk piano beats out its version of reveille and with four quick breaths, Sunday Wilde revs up ‘What Man!?? Oh THAT Man!!’. Things start of with such a bang that the title lands in the first track “THAT Man Drives Me Mad”. Finding the break pedal on the album is not an option on this particular Sunday drive. Ms. Wilde shakes, rattles, glides and purrs across the landscape. The songs destinations are often obvious as in the opening track, “I Can’t Shake That Guy” and “Show Me A Man” but more often implied (“Our Deal Is Done”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Rest My Weary Heart”). Sunday Wilde drinks deep from the well that feed blues, soul and rock streams. The water that runs out tastes like Southern Comfort to some and she joins fellow partakers with the most clear lineage on “Manning Street Sweet Talker”.
The emotion that pours out of Sunday Wilde clears a path on every track. She sings pains and pleasures, dreams and decisions. Wrapping the vocals with matching instrumental textures are Ronnie Hayward on upright bass and David West on guitar. As piano bass notes the rhythm while Hayward’s bass slowly taps out riffs, squeezing the most out of each note. Sunday Wilde is up for The Independent Music Award in Canada and you can lend you support support by voting here. Danny McCloskey - The Alternate Root Magazine

The honky tonk piano beats out its version of reveille and with four quick breaths, Sunday Wilde revs up ‘What Man!?? Oh THAT Man!!’. Things start of with such a bang that the title lands in the first track “THAT Man Drives Me Mad”. Finding the break pedal on the album is not an option on this particular Sunday drive. Ms. Wilde shakes, rattles, glides and purrs across the landscape. The songs destinations are often obvious as in the opening track, “I Can’t Shake That Guy” and “Show Me A Man” but more often implied (“Our Deal Is Done”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Rest My Weary Heart”). Sunday Wilde drinks deep from the well that feed blues, soul and rock streams. The water that runs out tastes like Southern Comfort to some and she joins fellow partakers with the most clear lineage on “Manning Street Sweet Talker”.
The emotion that pours out of Sunday Wilde clears a path on every track. She sings pains and pleasures, dreams and decisions. Wrapping the vocals with matching instrumental textures are Ronnie Hayward on upright bass and David West on guitar. As piano bass notes the rhythm while Hayward’s bass slowly taps out riffs, squeezing the most out of each note. Sunday Wilde is up for The Independent Music Award in Canada and you can lend you support support by voting here. Danny McCloskey - The Alternate Root Magazine

The honky tonk piano beats out its version of reveille and with four quick breaths, Sunday Wilde revs up ‘What Man!?? Oh THAT Man!!’. Things start of with such a bang that the title lands in the first track “THAT Man Drives Me Mad”. Finding the break pedal on the album is not an option on this particular Sunday drive. Ms. Wilde shakes, rattles, glides and purrs across the landscape. The songs destinations are often obvious as in the opening track, “I Can’t Shake That Guy” and “Show Me A Man” but more often implied (“Our Deal Is Done”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Rest My Weary Heart”). Sunday Wilde drinks deep from the well that feed blues, soul and rock streams. The water that runs out tastes like Southern Comfort to some and she joins fellow partakers with the most clear lineage on “Manning Street Sweet Talker”.
The emotion that pours out of Sunday Wilde clears a path on every track. She sings pains and pleasures, dreams and decisions. Wrapping the vocals with matching instrumental textures are Ronnie Hayward on upright bass and David West on guitar. As piano bass notes the rhythm while Hayward’s bass slowly taps out riffs, squeezing the most out of each note. Sunday Wilde is up for The Independent Music Award in Canada and you can lend you support support by voting here. Danny McCloskey - The Alternate Root Magazine

Gutsy and soulful, Sunday wilde from Atikokan can sing you the blues, straight from her broken heart. For someone who has been playing for only about five years, she's prolific, and on a night in early February, she released her third album to a Thunder Bay audience at the Ruby Moon Cafe. "What man? oh THAT man!! will have another release party on March 27th in Toronto at the Queen Street's Cameron House, a venue that for over thirty years has been a beascon for the new, original, and experimental. Her band on this album is an intersting and musical mix, with upright bassist Ronnie Hayward from the rockabilly scene in Vancouver who made a creeer in Europe and now leads his own trio in Toronto, and David West, the Ecuadorian-Canadian guitarist who plays world fusion music with the Papa Duke Band. For the Thunder Bay performance she had Thunder Bay's own Chris Lamont of the Greenback Trio with her, accompanying her melodious minor key ballads on bass with a bow to great effect. On the album the upbeat numbers course along with the rockabilly beat of Hayward's plucked bass, and are embellished in very inventive ways by David West's tasteful guitar. You can hear in this album a woman who has found her voice - it's more open and growing dynmaically, and as always it is distinctive.

Moving forward as a piano player and as a songwriter, her new release has some very strong songwriting, and lyrically you'll know by the hairs on the back of your neck that she knows what she's singing about. The first track has been nominated for the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards, an international award sponsored by a music industgry publisher, for blues song of the year. It's a song that one could call raunchy, but even so, it's not sloppy. The large group of industry judges includes Tom Waits, Shelby Lynn and Ozzy Osbourne. Canadian names amoung past winners are Little Miss Higgins, Jeff Healey, and Mellisswa McClelland. Not bad for a lady living in Atikokan where she chooses to raise her sons.

Meeting the day of her Thunder Bay Gig over lunch, our conversation turns out lots of broad strokes, the picture painted illustrating that Sunday can't seem to stop herself from loving, working and making things happen. With lots of grief in her heart from family loss (especially the most recent loss of her mother) and romantic heartbreak, she's not shy about expressing it, and infusing it with hope. Her determination is easily appreciated by anyone who spends time with her, and it has kept her looking for the right players (her requirement for a band is that it consists of a mighty fine upright bass player). The internet has helped her reach a larger audience, even getting attention from Dan Akroyd's House of Blues, and fans as far away as Italy and California have picked up her music. As she leaves for her album release in Toronto, I'm left with the impression that hard work pays off, and cures a lot of blues.
by Nancy Ewachow - The Walleye Magazine

Sunday Wilde, hails from Atikokan and is a mean barrelhouse piano player. She also writes good songs and sings them in a brash, confident style. Several of the songs here revel in the theme of the title, with the opener, “That Man Drives Me Mad”, “Show Me A Man”, “Manning Street Sweet Talker” & “I Can’t Shake That Guy” being fine new examples of a theme with a long history. It’s not all she does though, with “Sunday’s Midnight Blues” being a slow, jazzy & quite original composition on that subject. “My Baby’s Dead” is perhaps the most unusual song, done in a gypsy style and at a nightmare clip. Bessie Smith’s “Sorrowful Blues” is the only cover, and she adapts that to her style very nicely. Ronnie Hayward provides imaginative support on acoustic bass and David West contributes assertively on various guitars. The result transcends mere accompaniment, making for a very lively disc indeed. Her web site has audio samples and much more: www.myspace.com/renojacksundaywilde. - Toronto Blues Society

Sunday Wilde, hails from Atikokan and is a mean barrelhouse piano player. She also writes good songs and sings them in a brash, confident style. Several of the songs here revel in the theme of the title, with the opener, “That Man Drives Me Mad”, “Show Me A Man”, “Manning Street Sweet Talker” & “I Can’t Shake That Guy” being fine new examples of a theme with a long history. It’s not all she does though, with “Sunday’s Midnight Blues” being a slow, jazzy & quite original composition on that subject. “My Baby’s Dead” is perhaps the most unusual song, done in a gypsy style and at a nightmare clip. Bessie Smith’s “Sorrowful Blues” is the only cover, and she adapts that to her style very nicely. Ronnie Hayward provides imaginative support on acoustic bass and David West contributes assertively on various guitars. The result transcends mere accompaniment, making for a very lively disc indeed. Her web site has audio samples and much more: www.myspace.com/renojacksundaywilde. - Toronto Blues Society

Sunday Wilde follows her previous bluesy outing with an even wilder and more focused adventure. Her sassy vocals are as strong as ever, and her piano playing is ace. The feline opener "That man drives me mad" is a high-octane opener as Wilde suggestively pants and growls her words out. The more subtle approach in "Sunday's midnight blues" works fine and shows her voice at its deepest and most beguiling. "My baby's dead" is an Eastern European tinged nightmare about a grieving woman that allows Wilde room to roam with her peerless vocal prowess. She's made a fabulous record that should appeal to many - Ectophiles Guide to Good Music

There are a lot of great female vocalists that have and are gracing the Canadian Music Scene, but one of them is really starting to stand out amongst the crowd, and her name is Sunday Wilde.

Sunday Wilde hails from the Northern Ontario, and has honed her unique vocals singing anywhere from small mining towns to large festivals and everywhere in between. Beyond her powerful vocal delivery is her equally powerful lyrical delivery which shows us all that she understands the ups and downs one can go through and thoroughly knows how to deliver that message, via her music, and people seem to have started to take notice, having already won jazz and blues awards and being ranked as high as #6 on "the Roots Music Report for radio play across Canada".

"What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" consists of 11 tracks, all Originals and all written by Sunday Wilde except for "Sorrowful Blues", which is a Bessie Smith/Irving Johns song. Guest musicians for "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" include a couple of renowned Artists namely, Ronnie Hayward of Rockabilly and Country Fame and Internationally Famous Guitarist David West of the Papa Duke Band.

"What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" is described on her ReverbNation website as consisting of "10 original Blues....with a smidgen of jazz", and you will certainly get that and perhaps more than a smidgen, but you will also get a great smoky room blues feel mixed in with the odd nice feel of rockabilly, courtesy of the magnificent piano work via none other than Sunday Wilde herself. Every note and word on this Album comes across loud and clear and you really get a wonderful intimate feel as you are treated to the 3 artists melding together in perfect unison. One can easily see how she quickly gained popularity, especially playing small venues, which I am sure is where she must have absolutely mesmerized her audience.

Sunday's singing voice reminds me a little of Sue Foley and it certainly works perfectly for the style of music she plays, which she has honed to perfection via being influenced by the greats, such as, Ruth Brown, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Waits, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few of the more prominent ones. Her delivery of the styles of those greats is probably as good as most anyone else can do in these modern times and it is a delivery that perhaps isn't quite offered nearly enough in todays overly popped up music scene.

I am extremely happy that Sunday Wilde took the initiative to search me out and introduce me to "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!", an Artist I was not aware of tell then and one for whom I surely should of been aware of. She has shown me that Canada still has a lot of little treasures being found out there in the area of Music.

For those whom like truly a great vocal delivery from a truly great vocalist in the Smoky Old Jazzy Blues Room Tradition, "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!", is just what the doctor ordered. Thoroughly Enjoyed and highly Recommended...

Review by John Vermilyea (Blues Underground Network - Blues Underground Network

There are a lot of great female vocalists that have and are gracing the Canadian Music Scene, but one of them is really starting to stand out amongst the crowd, and her name is Sunday Wilde.

Sunday Wilde hails from the Northern Ontario, and has honed her unique vocals singing anywhere from small mining towns to large festivals and everywhere in between. Beyond her powerful vocal delivery is her equally powerful lyrical delivery which shows us all that she understands the ups and downs one can go through and thoroughly knows how to deliver that message, via her music, and people seem to have started to take notice, having already won jazz and blues awards and being ranked as high as #6 on "the Roots Music Report for radio play across Canada".

"What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" consists of 11 tracks, all Originals and all written by Sunday Wilde except for "Sorrowful Blues", which is a Bessie Smith/Irving Johns song. Guest musicians for "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" include a couple of renowned Artists namely, Ronnie Hayward of Rockabilly and Country Fame and Internationally Famous Guitarist David West of the Papa Duke Band.

"What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!" is described on her ReverbNation website as consisting of "10 original Blues....with a smidgen of jazz", and you will certainly get that and perhaps more than a smidgen, but you will also get a great smoky room blues feel mixed in with the odd nice feel of rockabilly, courtesy of the magnificent piano work via none other than Sunday Wilde herself. Every note and word on this Album comes across loud and clear and you really get a wonderful intimate feel as you are treated to the 3 artists melding together in perfect unison. One can easily see how she quickly gained popularity, especially playing small venues, which I am sure is where she must have absolutely mesmerized her audience.

Sunday's singing voice reminds me a little of Sue Foley and it certainly works perfectly for the style of music she plays, which she has honed to perfection via being influenced by the greats, such as, Ruth Brown, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Waits, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few of the more prominent ones. Her delivery of the styles of those greats is probably as good as most anyone else can do in these modern times and it is a delivery that perhaps isn't quite offered nearly enough in todays overly popped up music scene.

I am extremely happy that Sunday Wilde took the initiative to search me out and introduce me to "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!", an Artist I was not aware of tell then and one for whom I surely should of been aware of. She has shown me that Canada still has a lot of little treasures being found out there in the area of Music.

For those whom like truly a great vocal delivery from a truly great vocalist in the Smoky Old Jazzy Blues Room Tradition, "What Man!?? Oh THAT man!!", is just what the doctor ordered. Thoroughly Enjoyed and highly Recommended...

Review by John Vermilyea (Blues Underground Network - Blues Underground Network

Second CD for Sunday Wilde: Broken String of Pearls
Singing, and now writing, straight from her heart
M. McKinnon
“I just got sick about crying to myself about not having anyone to play music with…”
So Sunday Wilde started teaching herself the piano, and incredible as it may seem, in a little over a year - with a little help from some new friends - she was able to record nine original songs.
Wilde (better known in Atikokan as Ange Sponchia), released her second CD, Broken String of Pearls, last month.
It’s a terrific follow-up to the debut disk she and Reno Jack released in 2006, Black Pearls of Wisdom and offers clear evidence Sunday Wilde continues to grow and develop as an artist. Wilde’s power and feeling as a vocalist were apparent on Black Pearls, where she brought to life a range of standards (St. James Infirmary, House of the Rising Sun, Summertime). They are great songs, and she and Jack did them justice - and more.
This time out, Wilde is working without a net: Broken String is just Wilde, with all new material she composed. And she takes the same uncompromising approach to songwriting as she does to singing - let it all hang out!
From the earthy innocence of He Digs Me, to the take charge Don’t Sit Around Waiting, to the hauntingly dark Trouble Coming at me from Behind, Sponchia lays bare her emotional world, and her musical talent. The struggles of love (men!) are a recurring theme. (Back Lane Man offers the purest blues on the disc, a track that would do Ruth Brown or Etta James proud.)
Singing the standards, Sponchia was always able to bring her emotional reality to each song. But with her own music, the emotional content is far more direct. And while her lyrics are definitely heavily influenced by the blues, it’s harder to pin down her musical style to any one genre.
“I was looking for a producer [when starting this CD], and played some [early versions] for a blues producer, and he told me I didn’t understand the blues, and would have to re-do them all,” said Wilde. “That wasn’t going to happen!”
Wilde was adamant about sticking to her emotional vision for each of the songs. She even sang about that, in a way: The underlying message in Money Ain’t the Thing is that the music has to be about the emotion and the rhythm, above all else.
With that uncompromising attitude, and her limited track record, it’s not surprising Wilde had to hunt for years (literally) to find musicians to play with. But her drive and commitment - combined with her obvious talent - finally paid off.
She hired guitarist David West (Toronto, via Ecuador, and a mainstay in the Papa Duke Band) to work with her on the CD - and was glad she did.
“He told me: Blues isn’t about precision, it’s about the feel,” she recalled. “When he said that, it really validated me and what I was trying to do.”
Thunder Bay musicians Wolfe Wall (actually, a Lakehead University mathematician and astronomy instructor) and Tom Sinkins (Bay Street Blues Band) soon responded to her call for musical partners, and play prominent roles on the disk - Sinkins on bass, and Wall on flute, cello and clarinet.
Wilde was also pleased with Greg Schultz, of SWG Productions, where she produced the CD. “He was great. I wanted to scream and cry and do what I needed to do, and he just let me go to it.”
A fine example of that is on Jiving Man, where she used a megaphone for the background vocals. “He said they could do that in production [alter her voice electronically], but I wanted to sing thru the megaphone, and that was okay with him.”
The technique only heightens reminders of Tom Waits in her work. Several people have commented on it (our favorite came from a Calgary fan: her performances are “like Janis Joplin getting beaten up by Tom Waits at an Ella Fitzgerald concert”), but Wilde is a bit mystified - Waits’ voice is almost gravelly, and his music skirts the line of oppressive darkness. Her former musical partner, Reno Jack, identifies what is going on: Both Waits and Wilde sing loosely structured blues with an overriding commitment to passion.
“I sent a copy of the CD to Tom Waits’ producer; my mom insisted,” said Wilde, with a laugh.
As to her piano work, Wilde kept her playing simple, emotive and on point, and it works very well. “I am a singer and songwriter, not a pianist,” she said. We did hear a bit of boogie woogie (in Smooth Talking Man), but suspect that, at the keyboard, Wilde is still a decade or so behind her son (Lucas Paulson) who also contributed to the CD (a lively, interesting piano work he composed and performed, Parabola).
Instrumentally, the memorable work on the album comes from guitarist West (we especially liked his contribution to Money Ain’t the Thing), and Wall. In Johnson Avenue Scat - a fairly spontaneous piece - Wilde scats to Wall’s flute in an absolutely delightful back-and-forth. And Wall’s cello work brings out the darkest hues in Wilde’s voice on Trouble, and his clarinet adds to the urgency in Don’t Sit - Atikokan Progress

So far, 2009 has been very good to Sunday Wilde (or, as she’s better known in Atikokan, Ange Sponchia).

The big-voiced blues singer is nearing completion of her second CD, and has landed a song-writing grant from the Ontario Arts Council that will allow her to focus on creating more of her own material.

It hasn’t been easy. In 2006-07, she teamed up with Reno Jack, a veteran of the Canadian music scene, and started to make a name for herself in performances from B.C. to Toronto, and even further afield on the web. That partnership ended, but Wilde has continued to pursue her musical career - on top of motherhood (two sons), a small business (Nature Power Chews), and a part-time job (Friends of Quetico) - with an intensity and determination that is nothing short of inspiring.

That she would have the chops to do that probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has seen her perform. The power of her voice and the passion in her delivery fill any stage she takes to. This is no shrinking violet!

After nearly a year of writing and searching for musicians to work with, Wilde was ready to start recording late last year. The search for accompanists was a struggle, and despite her best efforts seemed destined to fail. (“Everywhere I go, I talk with people about music, and I am willing to go with the flow,” she says.) She finally resolved to just do it all herself, on piano.

That surrender seemed to be exactly what was needed, because over the past few months she has struck gold, in terms of musicians. Contributors to the new disk so far include Wolfe Wall on cello and clarinet, Martin Blanchette (a bassist with the Thunder Bay Symphony) and guitarist David West.

She has seven original works “fine-tuned”, and after about 30 hours in the recording studio (in Thunder Bay, where all the musicians she is working with are based) has four close to done. She is back in the studio for at least four more days in upcoming weeks.

“They are more jazzy than bluesy,” she says. That’s not exactly by design – it’s the direction that came when she started to work the material. “It’s hard to describe what happens when we get into the studio.”

“I’m hoping to get some up on the website soon [Google Sunday Wilde], and we’re aiming to get the whole CD done by the end of June.”

It’s her second CD. She and Reno Jack recorded Black Pearls of Wisdom, a collection of blues/jazz standards mixed with some original work.

At the same time as she was plotting out the new work, she fired off an application to the Ontario Arts Council for a project called Wailing in the Wilds – a series of songs love and grief, set against a backdrop of life in the Northern wilds.

“You know, the stages of grief and the stages of love – sometimes they are very much the same,” she says, and howls with laughter. “Well, it’s true!”

Obviously, this is one blues singer who comes by the art naturally!


- Atikokan Progress

Let’s grab a seat quickly because Sunday Wilde, a blues and jazz singer from Ontario is setting up. She’ll be the first of two sensational female singers who’ve come out to join in our celebration. An incredible vocalist, Sunday has played all over the logging and mining towns of her region, moved into coffeehouses and blues clubs, and finally landed some slot at large festivals in Canada. She writes honestly about life with a maturity and grit that ought to come from a 70-year-old blues singer who’d seen it all and done it all. Sunday’s vocal delivery often sounds like it was taken right off an old 78 blues record. It’s that authentic and from the gut. In 2006, she recorded her debut album, Black Pearls of Wisdom, with Reno Jack. Tonight, Sunday’s promised to tease us with selections from her second album, Broken String of Pearls, that came out this year. It captures that vintage blues sound with instrumental backups from Ecuadorian David West who plays a custom double sided guitar, bassist Tom Sinkins, Wolfe Wall on flute, cello, and clarinet, and Sunday on piano. She might even treat us to a tune or two from her third album that she’s working on that will be released in 2010.

- Skope Magazine

Sunday Wilde plays a nice brand of retro blues/jazz and her vocal are warm and inviting. She's hardly reinventing the genre, but she has such fun with it that it hardly matters. "Don't sit around waiting" makes good use of the growl inherent in Wilde's vocals and evokes a nice mood. "Smooth talking man" has some nice honky tonk piano and a sassy lead vocal. "Trouble coming at me from behind" is another winner, Wilde playing deft piano and adding a sultry vocal. It's as blue as can be and it really works. She reminds me of others in the genre, most notably Madeleine Peyroux, but she has her own voice. - Ectophile's Guide to Good Music