The Blues

There’s nothing more iconic than The Blues. Picture yourself on the steamy Mississippi bayou, on Beale Street in Memphis or cruising the clubs of Chicago. Now you can already hear the melancholy notes of the guitar or harmonica of greats like BB King, Etta James, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Downchild Blues band, Joe Louis Walker, John Lee Hooker and more. Tune in for the best of the past and the best of the new, all blues. Real and emotional.

Holger Petersen has lived his life involved with blues and roots music. He started collecting 45’s and playing drums with local Edmonton bands during his high school years and started broadcasting Natch’l Blues on Alberta’s CKUA in 1969. That led to hosting CBC Radio One and Two’s Saturday Night Blues since 1987. In 2008 he was presented with “Keeping The Blues Award” as “Public Radio Broadcaster Of The Year” by The Blues Foundation in Memphis. In 1976, Holger founded Stony Plain Records, which specializes in blues and roots music. The artists on the label have won ten Juno’s and received four Grammy nominations.

Over the years, he has never stopped collecting music and now owns more than 25,000 records and CD’s. “Programming Galaxie is just an extension of everything else I do,” says Holger, who also produces the work of many of his artists. But what makes him love the genre so much that he lives and breathes it? “There’s honest emotion in blues,” he explains. “That’s why it’s the best good-time music in the world—and the saddest and most real music, too.”

In 2002, Holger was given an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Athabasca University for his contribution to public broadcasting and to Canadian culture. In 2003, Holger received the Order of Canada for his support to Canadian Blues music.