Emily Fennell ‘Miss Emily’ wins three Maple Blues awards

Miss Emily as a guest performer at the ROC n Revue

Prince Edward County’s Emily Fennell scored three Maple Blues Awards at Koerner Hall in Toronto Monday night.

Fennell, known as Miss Emily received the top female vocalist and new artist of the year awards at the celebration of Canadian blues music (both recorded and live).

The Maple Blues awards celebrates outstanding achievement in Canadian blues music.

Fennell, now residing in Kingston, was also nominated for entertainer of the year and did receive the Sapphire Video Award cash prize of $1,500.

Her music video ‘Hold Back the River’ was filmed with 100 women inside the now closed Kingston Penitentiary.

“Our theme was the #MeToo movement and the response we received from this video was overwhelmingly positive and moving,” she stated on her Facebook page. “The group of women I filmed this with were passionate, strong, courageous and phenomenal in so many ways. Everyone had a story. Everyone showed their love and support towards one another. It was an incredible day for all involved.”

From Miss Emily’s website: “In the 1990s a 12 year-old Emily Fennell was making her way around Southern Ontario, singing at county fairs and winning competition after competition. She was literally finding her voice. While the other young vocalists were dazzling crowds with standards like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or “I Will Always Love You,” Emily was stunning judges and audiences into silent amazement with K.D. Lang’s version of the Patsy Cline song “3 Cigarettes and an Ashtray”. That song choice and her spellbinding performance of it, says almost all you need to know about the woman who would become Miss Emily. She is never predictable and always willing to take a risk.”

In other top awards, The Downchild Blues Band won Entertainer of the Year; Colin James on Electric Act of the Year and Matt Anderson won Acoustic Act and Male Vocalist of the Year.