Ethan Askey & The Elevators Ride Down Highway 61 on Soulful New Single
“Clarksdale”
Ethan Askey & the Elevators have released their newest single “Clarksdale,” a road-ready slice of upbeat blues that fuses slide guitar, harmonica, heartfelt storytelling, and deep groove. Written by frontman Ethan Askey and guitarist Keith Larsen, the track pays homage to spiritual birthplaces of blues, soul, and rock and roll.
“Purveyors of fine Rocky Mountain roots & boogie blues,” Ethan Askey & the Elevators are building a reputation for inventive songwriting and electrifying live shows mostly in Western Canada, where they are based. The band’s sound is driven by Askey’s baritone vocals and blues harp stylings, Larsen’s expressive guitar, and a locomotive rhythm section with drummer Ben Dunn and bassist Mike Honeyman. They make modern blues that moves dance floors and radio dials alike.
The band was formed to follow up the success of Askey’s impressive solo debut album ‘Walk When You Wanna Run,’ an independent release in 2022 that he created with the studio contributions of musical associates in the Calgary and Toronto music scenes, and with co-producer credits going to Canadian heavyweight blues rock artist Steve Marriner. The album got steady international radio play and charted weekly for over 160 weeks, earning a place on the year-end “Best Of” (Top 200) Contemporary Blues charts, worldwide, for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024.
The story behind “Clarksdale” is part postcard and part emotional turmoil:
“It ended up being the trip of a lifetime, but I almost didn’t go since I felt so many things piled up on me”, Askey recalls. The timing was tail end of the global pandemic, and it was the renewed annual gathering of the blues music community in Memphis, Tennessee, for the International Blues Challenge event. With a hot new album out on the airwaves he wanted to be there too. The prospect of warmer winter weather there compared to the 30-below temperatures at home was an added pull. “It was the encouragement of Blues Power radio program host Gil Anthony that got me off the fence to travel down south”.
Larsen adds,
“The road trip we made down Highway 61 connected so many dots for us, from legendary blues crossroads to Nashville guitars to Elvis’s cars”.
The song references Johnny Cash too, paraphrasing his famous line, “get rhythm when you get the blues” as a subtext for “Clarksdale”. Lyrically, the song moves through scenes of winter fatigue and soulful escape, tracing a route from the frozen Canadian prairie to the beating heart of American roots music. The song’s chorus – “Gonna head down to Clarksdale, and Memphis, Tennessee / Gonna make some noise in Nashville and let sweet music wash all over me” – encapsulates its spirit: a yearning to reconnect with the source and let music cleanse the noise of everyday life.
There is most definitely a thread connecting the early country and blues artists along the mighty Mississippi, through time and space, to the contemporary blues and rock music made today by Ethan Askey & the Elevators in the Canadian Rockies. With “Clarksdale,” they stake out solid ground as modern storytellers with an authentic voice and some vintage voltage. The single bridges north and south, tradition and innovation, memory and motion. It’s a song about chasing warmth – in spirit, perhaps even more than in temperature.
The still-new band is already preparing their next single release, “Big Bad Boss Man,” and a full-length album slated for mid-2026, accompanied by further touring within Canada.
Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
I’m a musician, singer, and songwriter who has been a sideman and supporting player most of my life. I’ve only recently leaned into the roles of primary songwriter and bandleader. I’ve always loved just being in the moment with other musicians, whether on a big stage or on none at all, getting into a groove and serving other people’s songs. But having lived in this crazy world for a few decades now, I decided I have stories of my own worth telling, in the colours, textures and rhythms of my choice.
My songs are mostly personal in origin, inspired by my friends and family and experiences. Being based in the Canadian Rocky Mountains perhaps it’s no surprise that there are themes of exploration, the natural world, and the pull of gravity at play in my writing in addition to the more time-tested topics of lust, love, grief and joy. It has taken me a long while to find my authentic voice as a singer and a songwriter.
To present my music live, and to collaborate in making more fresh music, I’ve pulled together a fantastic band in The Elevators. I’ve known them all for decades but only played together with each of them occasionally. We were ships passing between ports. But now we live in the same area once again and we absolutely gel.
What inspired your trip down Highway 61 and how did “Clarksdale” grow out of that journey?
I’d been to Memphis once before for the annual International Blues Challenge event, where thousands gather from across the continent and around the globe to share a love of blues music, and mostly emerging artists perform to gain recognition among their peers and possibly advance their careers. I really wanted to get down there for IBC 2023 as I had my debut solo album out for a few months then, and it was getting plenty of international radio play. I felt I needed to broaden my relationships and my awareness of other contemporary blues players. Also, I wanted to draw directly from the well that is the Mississippi region, along Highway 61 and at the fabled crossroads with Route 49 at Clarksdale. To channel the ghosts of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, deepen my blues music geography and history, and pay some respect. And for different reasons I also wanted to visit Nashville for the first time, put my finger on the pulse there.
My bandmate, guitarist Keith Larsen, felt the same way and jumped at my invite for the trip. We flew Calgary to Memphis. Day and night we drank it all in: the IBC shows and sounds on Beale Street all week long, Sun Records, Stax, various landmarks and touchstones for the music that moved us. We rented a brand new Cadillac for the road trip part of our travels, with a nod to Elvis. But the song lyric is not so much a postcard from our trip as it is about the emotional turmoil leading up to it: for a long while I couldn’t pull the trigger on making that trip. Flights and hotels were expensive, and I had some general life things going on that were holding me back from indulging in a business-as-pleasure trip. Ultimately, Blues Power radio program host Gil Anthony tipped the scale with his encouragement to come join the gathering. Rather than mope at home with the blues, I followed Gil’s lead and also Johnny Cash’s advice and went in search of some rhythm.
You mention feeling “piled up” before going—how did the trip shift your perspective personally or musically?
Making that trip, and doing it in a way that it was a complete 24/7 immersion in music, was a powerful reminder and confirmation for me that almost nothing else in my life moved me as much as time-honoured music that is all about real things, human struggle and resilience, combined with deep groove. As our song lyric goes, I just “let sweet music wash all over me”.
What was it like connecting the Canadian Rockies to the Mississippi Delta through your songwriting?
It was a natural fit, I think, for me and for Keith. “The blues” as a form of expression remains vital, not locked into one period of time and place. Musicians give voice to the blues, and music lovers relate to its feels, all around the world in the present day. It can reflect so many complex emotions and circumstances. And I feel that connecting those dots in a genuine and respectful way also honours the people from the American South who now rest in power, whose lives and voices had birthed and shaped the genre.
You know, I had sort of connected similar dots before, between my home in the Rockies and Chicago, at the northern end of “the blues highway”, in the title track of my solo debut album Walk When You Wanna Run. That song concerns my personal relationship with Junior Wells which spanned those two locales. He was a big influence on me. Having been there twice, having walked through his South Side Chicago neighborhood to his home, sharing coffee with his mom, playing for him in Buddy Guy’s club, and seeing him playing and bantering with his pals in the audience live at Rosa’s Lounge (just like what was captured on recordings live at Theresa’s Lounge 50 years ago) was surreal. Those experiences really moved me, and they were formative in my choices as a musician.
With a new album and single “Big Bad Boss Man” on the way, what can fans expect from this next chapter?
This next chapter is juicy! I’m so grateful for the strong, supportive groove and camaraderie of this newly formed band The Elevators. We’ve been having a blast creating brand new music and performing it, along with the earlier material and our homages to the masters.
With a more collaborative approach to songwriting – in contrast to my previous solo album – I’ve got all sorts of fresh musical ideas and influences from the other fellas to work with. I’ve gotten feedback from radio deejays, fans and music critics alike that they appreciate my unique and often playful songwriting, and I’ve doubled down on that. Expect some swing, some serious groove, some heartfelt and soulful moments, and some cheekiness too. We’re having fun with this!
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