REVIEWS

Penguin Eggs Review October 2009
Live—Two Nights in March (Independent)
By: Scott Lingley

Alberta-born, Saskatchewan-based Little Miss Higgins showcases her “top hat” live revue on a recording captured at dates in Calgary and Saskatoon in the spring of 2009. Sticking with the stripped-down accompaniment of guitars, bass and trumpet (or clarinet for the Calgary set), Higgins’s charmingly anachronistic approach to song is augmented by sprightly stage banter and yarn spinning, as well as a freewheeling live energy and effortless rapport with an enthusiastic audience. 
Regular collaborator Foy Taylor’s guitar does multiple duty as rhythm, lead and percussion, occasionally twinning with Higgins’s vocals to winning effect. The singer slips a couple of saucy Memphis Minnie ditties into the set, which sit nicely with her own distinctive prairie country-blues. Listeners seeking an introduction to Miss Higgins, her gentlemen accompanists and their unique musical chemistry would do very well to start here.

The blues to hit Cochrane
November 11, 2009
By: Lindsay Wilson

Roots music, with a blues edge and a country twist, is set to take center stage Nov. 14.

Jolene “Little Miss” Higgins, accompanied by Foy Taylor on rhythm guitar and Calgary blues master Tim Williams on mandolin and guitar, will be sharing some musical talent with Cochrane at the RancheHouse.

Little Miss Higgins is performing for the folk club with blues great Tim William Nov. 14 at the Cochrane RancheHouse. (Photo courtesy of Jolene Higgins). Little Miss Higgins is performing for the folk club with blues great Tim William Nov. 14 at the Cochrane RancheHouse. (Photo courtesy of Jolene Higgins)

Higgins has been playing music ever since she can remember, and has been working as a full-time musician for the last five years.

“It’s a lot of work. You gotta stay disciplined and keep at it – practice and write,” said songwriter Higgins.

But it’s obvious she loves what she does.

“Even with the craziness, it’s an honour to be able to perform full-time,” said Higgins.

Higgins is noted for her skill as a performer on the stage. She blends her rootsy style, blues guitar riffs and gifted storytelling with a performance inspired by musicals from the 1930s as a way of engaging her audience.

Described by Williams as “Mae West meets Memphis Mini,” Jolene “Little Miss” Higgins delivers an authentic, earthy style of country-blues in a way that brings the listener back to a time when live performance was about gutsy lyrics and raw sound.

Williams produced Little Miss Higgins’ second album, Junction City, in 2007, which went on to receive a Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Blues Recording of 2008, and was also nominated for a 2008 Juno Award.

Williams, who is one of Calgary’s most highly regarded blues players, has worked as a producer for many notable musicians. He first met Little Miss Higgins in Yellowknife several years ago. They are currently promoting their newest album, Two Nights in March, with an Alberta mini-tour.

The recording of this newest album was done between the Amigos Cantina in Saskatoon and Engineered Air Theatre in Calgary.

Sounds of Saskatchewan in the Attic
Lethbridge Herald
Monday, October 5, 2009
Little Miss Higgins

Something special was indeed on display with the show Sunday, as the charming sounds of Little Miss Higgins started the show off in style. Her style is heavily influenced by the sounds of artists like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, but also more blues and jazz artists like Billie Holiday. “Back in the 90’s my friends were listening to a lot of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and I like that stuff too, but I found it too aggressive. Where are the melodies? So that’s what attracted me to that old blues and jazz,” Higgins remembers. Of course, there wasn’t a great deal of other artists playing in a similar vein to Little Miss Higgins, who worked on her own developing her style of writing and playing. “I had to kind of go-it-alone for awhile there, before I could get out on my own.” Higgins made her way all over Western Canada after high school, attending theatre schools in both Red Deer and Victoria. After putting together a touring play and taking it to Regina, she found herself wondering what to do next after the run ended. “I thought why don’t I just stay here on the prairies, and I love it – I’m a total prairie girl,” tells Higgins. After working on getting into the Regina folk scene and meeting her partner Foy Taylor, they decided to move to the bustling metropolis of Nokomis, Saskatchewan – population 400. “It’s nice and cheap, there’s high-speed internet and telephone, so we can do a lot of work from there. We have a garden and a big old funky house that’s just a great place where we can just be and write music.”

With her 2008 album, Junction City, earning her the award for Outstanding Blues Album at the Western Canadian Music Awards; as well as a Juno nomination for Blues Album of the Year, she’s looking to expand upon her success with an upcoming record to be released spring of 2010. If the set she played Sunday is proof, she’ll be just fine. As a guitarist, Higgins is an inspiration; demonstrating gender makes no difference in picking fast, melodic rockabilly licks with precision. Over great tunes of her own including “Pig Meat Strut” and “Silvertone Swing” she lit her fretboard up, and did the same over a classic Memphis Minnie tune, “Killer Diller”. Foy Taylor did a great job of backing her up and throwing some slick licks in too, while stomping a mic’ed up wooden box to keep a thumping beat going. Top notch effort from a compact combo, which is always nice to see: how just two people can invest enough passion into the songs that really brings them to life.

Little Miss Higgins
Exclaim! Magazine
Two Nights In March
By Kerry Doole

It may seem premature and a mite presumptuous to serve up a live album as your third but Saskatchewan songstress Higgins validates the choice. She has rapidly become one of the most popular performers in Canadian roots music and her down-home country charm shines through here. This was recorded in front of appreciative crowds in Calgary and Saskatoon, and showcases Higgins' fine quartet. Songs from her acclaimed Junction City album are featured heavily, with LMH fave "The Dirty Ol Tractor Song" kicking things off. Her rapport with the audience is demonstrated when she gets them to sing along on her cover of "I'm Gonna Bake My Biscuits" by Memphis Minnie (clearly a huge influence). The songs fuse blues, folk, jazz and country elements (instrumentation includes clarinet and trumpet), and Higgins' authentically retro vocal style convinces on them all. Her skill as a songwriter is shown on her lament for Louis Riel ("Snowin' Today"), the righteously rockin' "Broadcast Boogie" and the rural poetry of "Velvet Barley Bed." Impressive stuff. (Independent)

Higgins finds inspiration everywhere
The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax
By STEPHEN COOKE Entertainment Reporter NOW HEAR THIS

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE new encounters at last summer’s Stan Rogers Folk Festival was Saskatchewan’s red hot mama Little Miss Higgins, who brought her coy and sprightly mix of old-time blues and jazz to the Canso extravaganza, but took something away with her as well.

Higgins returns to Nova Scotia for a string of shows this week, and she’ll be singing Slug on My Boot from her new live CD Two Nights in March, a song inspired by a large gastropod she found on her footwear in Canso, after walking back to her cabin with guitarist Foy Taylor through some tall, wet grass.

”The next day I was in a workshop with (Zimbabwe music and dance troupe) Black Umfolosi and (Canso-based songwriter) Irish Mythen, and I had a little instrumental, and I told the story and said, ‘Maybe this should be the Slug on My Boot song!’ recalls Higgins between flights on the phone from Pearson International Airport.

”Irish made up some lyrics on the spot and the Black Umfolosi guys started singing along and dancing and clapping.

”Afterwards, the songwriter Si Kahn came up to me and handed me a couple of pieces of yellow foolscap paper and said, ‘Here, I wrote down some lyrics to the Slug on My Boot song!’ He said I could use them, so I tried it out at the cookhouse back at the camp and it worked and I’ve been singing it ever since. Sometimes songs just happen like that.”

Higgins makes good use of the inspiration she gathers from the world around her, with many songs coming from her home community of Nokomis, formerly known as Junction City for its crossing railway lines, equidistant between Saskatoon and Regina.

The chugging rhythm of The Dirty Ol’ Tractor Song is self-explanatory, while In the Middle of Nowhere is a celebration of the wide open space and small town spirit in the place that she loves.

”The sky and the light is one thing, being able to stand in the middle of the street and see the horizon whichever way you look,” she says. ”I grew up on the Prairies, and I’ve lived elsewhere; Canada is an amazing and beautiful country, and it’s an honour to be able to travel and play for people.

”We get to see the ocean and the mountains, but the Prairies is just a place that’s really special for me, and I’ll always hold a place in my heart for it.”

You can catch Little Miss Higgins’ joyful originals and dusty covers starting tonight at 8 p.m. at the Evergreen Theatre in Margaretsville, with a show on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Acoustic Roof House Concerts in Boutilier’s Point (seating is limited, e-mail contact@acousticroof.ca for details). On Monday night, she’s at Halifax’s Carleton Restaurant at 9 p.m.

Disc Picks: Rounding Up Some Recent Releases
Calgary Herald
August 11, 2009

Best Live

Little Miss Higgins, Two Nights In March - Alberta girl Little Miss Higgins captured her rootsy rich country blues at not one but two stops on the road this year, one in Calgary and one in Saskatoon. Tunes like The Dirty Ol' Tractor Song, Velvet Barley Bed and Broadcast Boogie just might make you wish you attended both gigs. That goes double for the Minnie McCoy covers.

Toronto Blues Society
Little Miss Higgins Live: Two Nights In March LMH/Outside Music
By: John Valenteyn CD Review

The purpose of a live recording is to present an audio version of the stage show, as opposed to just the studio recordings. Here Little Miss Higgins succeed in spades. Jolene Higgins’ stage presence is extraordinary, as we’ve discovered on her visits here, and this strikes the listener to the CD immediately.

Her stories about the songs cast new light on already good ones like “In The Middle Of Nowhere”, “The Tractor Song”, “Radville” and “Velvet Barley Bed”. There are new ones as well: “Snowin’ Today: A Lament For Louis Riel” and “How & Why & When”. Her Memphis Minnie roots are here too, with “You Ain’t Done Nothing To Me” and a hilarious version of “I’m Gonna Bake My Biscuits”. The CD is beautifully programmed, climaxing with a superb performance of “Romance In The Dark”.

The two shows were at Amigo’s Cantina in Saskatoon and the Engineered Air Theatre in Calgary. Bass, drums & occasional trumpet were added for the Saskatoon show and a clarinet for the Calgary one, adding new colours to these songs. This is an enhanced CD, with the music video for “In The Middle of Nowhere” added for your enjoyment. As that song title suggests, a good deal of Little Miss Higgins’ charm is the sense of fun at being away from all the action ‘in the middle of nowhere’ but also very much enjoying living there. I hope they don’t lose that.

Little Miss Higgins wins WCMA for blues recording
The StarPhoenix
Published: Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Western Canadian Music Awards, held during the weekend in Edmonton, were dominated by Winnipeg's The Weakerthans, but a 5-foot-2 blues singer made sure Saskatchewan was well-represented.
Little Miss Higgins, born Jolene Higgins, took home the award for Outstanding Blues Recording for her album Junction City.
The Nokomis-based artist took time to reflect on the win Monday after attending the Sunday-night awards ceremony.

"It's certainly an honour to receive an award like that," she said. "I sure wasn't expecting it and the other nominees are such great, hardworking musicians. It's definitely an honour to be recognized in that group."
Higgins, who performed at the show with Winnipeg's The Perpetrators, said the weekend was filled with great Saskatchewan-made music.
"There's a ton of amazing bands, musicians and artists coming out of Saskatoon, like the Deep Dark Woods, who were nominated," she said. "It's great to see the music coming out of western Canada and how open and supportive everyone is of each other.
The awards ceremony, hosted by CBC Radio's Jian Ghomeshi, recognized the best music from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon in 19 categories.
Other Saskatchewan artists to win honours were Bob Evans -- who was awarded Outstanding Instrumental Recording for 4 on 6 -- and Elizabeth Raum -- whose Dark Thoughts (How Bodies Make Ecstatic Marks) won for Outstanding Classical Composition.
Little Miss Higgins plays Saskatoon on Dec. 5.

Little Miss Higgins wild about music award
LETHBRIDGE HERALD:
November 14th
Show: Dirty Ol Tractor Tour 2008

 On the third hand, the pride of Nokomis, Sask., Little Miss Higgins, aka Jolene Higgins and Foy Taylor had a packed house at the Slice on Nov. 14. They have been a busy couple since playing at the Lethbridge Folk Club’s Wolf’s Den earlier this year.
 In addition to non-stop touring, their second CD “Junction City” has picked up a Western Canadian Music Award for outstanding blues album at this year’s ceremonies in Edmonton, Oct. 17-19.
“It’s also been nominated for a Juno award, so being nominated wasn’t a surprise but we were sure surprised to win it. It’s so cool,” said Higgins after a soundcheck before their Nov. 14 performance at the Slice.
 They played a couple of excellent sets of jazz-tinged original blues music with the odd Memphis Minnie and W.C Handey cover, St. Louis Blues, for good measure.
The duo has been all over Western Canada since their last Lethbridge visit, but Higgins is looking forward to performing in Massey Hall, Nov. 28 as part of the Toronto Blues Society’s Women in Blues performance which also includes Suzie Vinnick. Then they will hole up in Nokomis to work on material for a new CD hopefully to be released in 2010.

2008 Summerfolk Featured Performer:
Little Miss Higgins

A pocket-sized powerhouse who mixes originals with 1930s Memphis blues standards, Little Miss Higgins captivates audiences with her gutsy and spirited songs. Little Miss is accompanied by partner/guitar player Foy Taylor. Together they create innovative guitar work rooted in a vintage sound with an unforgettably energized stage show. Her original songs reverberate with the twang of pre-rock blues and post-Carter Family country music that comes alive in Little Miss Higgins' signature 'kick up your heels' style.

Top female acts you have to see
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
By: Sandra Sperounes

Saskatchewan's economy is boomin' and so is the province's music scene. Leading the way is blues/folk/roots singer Little Miss Higgins, who sings with the soul of a flapper on her second disc, Junction City.

(Friday, 7:30 p.m., Stage 1; Saturday, 1 p.m., Stage 2; Sunday, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., Stage 1.)

These acts have one foot in the past and one in the future
Owen Sound Times
Summerfolk 2008
By RICHARD KNECHTEL

Jolene Higgins, better known as retrocountry blues artist Little Miss Higgins, is a pocket-sized powerhouse who mixes originals with 1930s Memphis blues standards. Accompanied by musical and life partner David Mark, her guitar work is rooted in a vintage sound and her energized stage show is full of gutsy, spirited songs.
Born in Independence, Kansas, Jolene was 13 when the family moved to Brooks, Alberta. After high school she studied theatre in Victoria and Red Deer. She performed at the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival before her musical career started to take off. "I still consider music as performing -- telling stories as well as playing music. I have a hard time standing still." "When I started playing guitar I listened to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. That took me farther back to find out who they were influenced by. Hearing people like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, I kept digging farther back. Who was Billie Holiday influenced by? Bessie Smith. Who was Bessie Smith influenced by? Minnie McCoy."
Higgins' musical world was soon bound by the songs, stories, mannerisms, fashions and ribald excess of the all but forgotten artists who were the pioneers of rock 'n' roll in the 1930s and '40s. It helped, she noted, that they lived very theatrical lives, onstage and off.
"Memphis Minnie was really cool because she also played guitar." Higgins plays an old-fashioned but smokin' style on her 1960s Kay archtop guitar played through a Fender Blues Junior amplifier, getting the warm tone you would have heard from the early electric guitars.
Jolene and David, who uses the stage name Foy Taylor which is always a cute part of their show, reside in Nokomis, Saskatchewan. Another prairie town, this one is located about halfway between Saskatoon and Regina. Nokomis was at one time the point where the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National rail lines crossed. These days it's a small and isolated bit of the prairies' fabled past, home to just 400 people.
"I'm definitely a prairie girl. I spent a year in Victoria, which is beautiful, but I realized that I'm a prairie person." Indeed, the big country of Saskatchewan figures prominently in Higgin's songs. In her country blues style, she sings of the wind, the emptiness of the landscape and getting dirty fingernails from tending the garden.
"Junction City", her album inspired by life in Nokomis, was nominated in the Blues Album category for the 2008 Juno Awards. The five foot two singer/guitarist was also nominated in the Favourite Blues Group or Duo category of the 8th Annual Indies Awards.
Bound to be a big hit at this year's Summerfolk, the songs of Little Miss Higgins reverberate with the twang of pre-rock blues and post-Carter Family country music coming alive in her signature 'kick up your heels' style.
"It will be nice to get east," said Higgins, who made her Toronto debut last October at the Free Times Café. "But it's also nice to get back to a place like Nokomis, somewhere quiet, with a house and garden. I get a lot of inspiration from that

Little Miss Higgins: Junction City (Sound recording review)
Sing Out!
Date: 3/22/2008
Author: Mike Regenstreif

Junction City may be the second album y Little Miss Higgins--aka Jolene Higgins--but it's the first one I've heard and that made the little miss my favorite new discovery of 2007. Higgins grew up in Alberta and Kansas, with theatre training in British Columbia, and now makes her home in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, a small prairie town on the old Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railroad lines. Maybe it's the echo of those trains passing through town that inspires her to create music steeped in the traditions of such blues artists as Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie and Big Bill Broonzy. She includes terrific versions of several blues classics including W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" and Mississippi John Hurt's version of "Frankie and Albert," but most of these songs are her own and she's as fine a songwriter as she is a singer and guitarist.

Small town prairie life inspires several of Higgins's songs. The album opens with "The Train's a'Comin' Down," an infectiously swinging tune in which she sings about having nowhere to be, about having dirty fingernails from working in the garden, about how she's thinking about putting on a play, and about hearing the train coming down the tracks. Sounds like a nice summer day in Nokomis for a songwriting former theatre student. Then, in "The Middle of Nowhere," which has a solo guitar groove reminiscent of Broonzy's playing in the 1940s, she talks about staying off the wintertime roads in the in the middle of nowhere; particularly when you might have had a drink or two too many.
Higgins gets fine support throughout the album from Foy Taylor on rhythm guitar. The album was recorded in Calgary and some of that city's best musicians, including producer Tim Williams, contribute to selected tracks.—MR

Review from the Maple Blues Awards Monday
Superturbo Bunny
January 21, 2008

Unfortunately, I found myself prosecuted by the court of Murphy's Law which decreed that I not be in my seat but at the bar when Little Miss Higgins finally took to the stage. She's got a twenties or thirties sound thing goin' on and a voice that's smooth like a prohibition fog rolling in on a lake of honey surrounded by cotton ball trees... with Mint Juleps scattered around the beach, of course.

Woods Wires and Whiskey November 2007
Junction City Reviews
Exclaim! Magazine

Little Miss Higgins
Junction City
By Kerry Doole

Listening to this album is like stepping into an aural time machine, with controls set to the late ’30s. This country blues singer-songwriter/guitarist from Nokomis, SK, has mastered the sound and style of this era with astonishing accuracy. She earned praise for her debut CD, Cobbler Shop Sessions, and this follow-up deserves to provide a major career boost. Higgins has a bright and clear vocal style, and is equally at home on original tunes and covers like the classic “St. Louis Blues,” Mississippi John Hurt’s “Frankie” and “You Ain’t Done Nothing To Me” by Memphis Minnie, clearly a major inspiration. She proves herself a fluent guitarist, and the use of ’30s National Resonator guitars by Higgins and rhythm guitarist Foy Taylor adds to the retro vibe. A couple of crisp instrumental tunes add variety to one impressive disc. This is recommended to anyone who has enjoyed Maria Muldaur’s recent blues albums.

Little Miss Higgins
Junction City
By David Barnard

There’s something in the water out in Junction City, known now as Nokomis, Saskatchewan. How else to explain the phenomenon of Jolene Higgins, Little Miss to you? With Junction City, her second CD, she’s become an exciting old-time traditional blues/jazz practitioner. The majority of the songs are from her pen, although you’d be forgiven for assuming the entire set was written more than 60 years ago. Songs like “The Dirty Old Tractor Song,” with its unique double-entendre, or “In the Middle of Nowhere,” a tribute steeped in living tradition about Higgins’ adopted home, which once was an important CN and CP railway line stop. Higgins possesses an expressive vocal style and like one of her inspirations, Memphis Minnie, she plays a mean, swinging guitar too. Ably supported by musical life partner Foy Taylor on guitar and various friends on mandolin, string bass, clarinet and subdues drums, this is a superb recording.