Gpsy nurse
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Mark has been on the regional scene for decades. The chemistry between Mark’s traditional acoustic guitar runs and Jill’s saucy mama vocals was enervating. There might as well have been tens of thousands there. I’d been dying to see them live because, despite pandemic streaming and sequestered phoned-in recordings, blues will always be a live phenomenon. Was that a success? By my measure it was. There were at best 100 fans sitting in wet seats at the beginning of their set.
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The start was delayed a half hour, but by 5:30 showtime the sun was out, and Mark and Jill hit it out of the park literally and figuratively. An hour before Mark and Jill were to take the stage, it poured buckets, and not one single fan was on location to grab an early seat for the best local triple header blues event of the summer. All week, the weather forecast had been for solid sunny weather, except for a predicted shower at the precise time the festival was to take place. Their opening set at Mona Golub’s BBQ and Blues Festival at Music Haven in Schenectady was a disaster waiting to happen on July 28 th.
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At one of those performances, there was no judge present, and there were half the normal number of competitors there for this, the first Blues Foundation sponsored IBC since the pandemic started. They made it into the semifinals this year, the first time any act from the Capital Region has made it that far in the history of that event. He and his partner Jill Burnham have competed twice at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge (IBC) on Beale St. He regularly plays Caffe Lena, arguably the most prestigious showcase of American roots music in the region. In the local blues world, Mark has long been a big success. Mark Tolstrup and his partner Jill Burnham are a success.