Arriving in Bracebridge only three years ago, the married duo of Todd and Robyn Blair is taking careful steps to ensure that their soulful blend of harmonies and intricate melodies wins them a place on concert stages throughout Muskoka and, given their enormous talents, beyond.
On the suggestion of local musician and bandleader Sean Cotton, Todd Blair entered and won first place in the 2023 Huntsville’s Got Talent. “That was an amazing experience. It was funny because I was doing an open mic at Canvas Brewery, and I met Sean Cotton. So, it was really his suggestion that kind of pushed me to submit. And yeah, I guess you can say the rest is history.”
It is most likely to be their future. Through multiple videos and their only recorded EP, ‘Off the Floor,’ Todd and Robyn have begun to define a sound that is timelessly unique and most certainly their own. Accompanied by sparse, simple guitar, the duo interweaves their voices into a spacious, emotive canopy under which their stories and entrancing lyrics reach out to those fortunate enough to hear them live.
Hearing the duo live is the best way to fall in love with what Todd and Robyn are aiming for.
Todd began playing guitar as a hobby in his teens. He began to take it increasingly more seriously in university, where he primarily focused on attaining a career in professional baseball. On a baseball scholarship, he went to post-university in Waterbury, Connecticut, playing shortstop and earning an average bat ratio of 245 over his four years of play. Todd recognized that, like so many chances in life, he was not going to be able to pursue a life in sports. Music became progressively more important to him.
“Once I was done with college and knew that baseball wasn’t gonna be the route, I just started to [play more]. It was really a buddy of mine in the country music scene, and he needed a guitar player, and he knew that I kind of [played] asked if I wanted to fill in for his guitar player. That was kind of my first opportunity to play live and play with the band, and [I] kind of fell in love with it there. After that, [I] just started doing open mics on my own. Then, Robyn started singing with me, and when we got together and we just were doing, like not even really doing, the open mic scene too much, in Toronto, but just every once in a while, we would pop out and play a couple tunes. It wasn’t really until moving to Bracebridge that we kind of started, or I started taking it a little bit more serious, and started playing open mics around Muskoka, and eventually got into Huntsville’s Got Talent, and ended up winning that, and I think it was really like the catalyst to kind of proving to myself that there was maybe something here and to kind of keep going at it,”Todd reveals.
Robyn had some minimal music background, but it was through meeting Todd and dealing with her stage fright, getting up in front of strangers to sing, that opened up her confidence and her unrealized talents.
Their journey to Bracebridge and Muskoka is as wonderous as their musical partnership. They had decided to go on a year-long trip to South America, but into their second month abroad, the pandemic struck, stranding them in Peru. After an arduous return to Canada, they found an opportunity to buy a house in Bracebridge, where they established professional activities. They were immediately struck by the welcoming vibrancy of the Muskoka music scene.
Todd found his instinct and inclination toward songwriting sharpened with the help of Liam Kearney’s Troubadour Thursdays, held at Bracebridge Hall. Although Todd had flirted with lyric ideas and fledgling melodies, he had not pursued the craft in any meaningful fashion until Kearney’s open invite to play original-only material. A great deal of Todd and Robyn’s foundational experience came from proving themselves and finding their signature sound while performing at Bracebridge Hall.
Songwriting as a duo has become an integral part of their act. Both as individuals and together as a duo, their songs have begun to materialize more frequently since their emergence and acknowledgment as a “must-see” act in Muskoka. They modestly attribute that to the community of musicians and established performers they have met over the past two years.
Robyn points out, “I’m more introspective. I’m a journal-type person. So, my ideas are always very heart-centered, like you’d write in a journal. This is an idea I have, then he kind of takes that and makes it less of a journey and more approachable. That’s been kind of a cool way of collaborating, too; how we both kind of bring something different to the table.”
However Todd and Robyn arrive at their finished songs, they have demonstrated to audiences throughout Muskoka a flair for catching emotion in time and translating that into compelling and picturesque performances.
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Does this strike you as a good time to be promoting “Americana”. ????