Chris Antonik

Chris Antonik

Chris Antonik is a Canadian blues guitarist, singer and songwriter from Canada. He emerges on the national and international blues scene in 2010 with his self-titled debut album, which receives widespread critical attention, spends more than a year in the Roots Music Report top 100 charts, and leads to a nomination for Best New Artist of the Year at the Maple Blues Awards, Canada’s national blues awards.

Recording career

Antonik’s debut solo album, Chris Antonik, is released in August 2010. It is noted for extensive radio play in Canada and internationally, including on Jazz FM 91.1, CBC Radio 1, CBC Radio 2, and other blues and roots programmes, as well as in countries including France, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, the UK, Poland, Croatia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Macedonia and Denmark. The album debuts at number 4 on the Roots Music Report Canadian roots music chart and number 35 on the international blues chart, later reaching number 2 and number 33 respectively. It is also voted the 10th best Canadian blues album released in 2010 on the Annual CHMR Top 20 Canadian Blues Chart, and is named by music critic Graham Clarke and by CKLR Radio in Quebec among the best blues albums of 2010.

One of the album’s songs, “Roll with It,” receives an honourable mention in the blues category of the 2010 International Songwriting Competition. The competition draws more than 15,000 entries and includes judges such as Jeff Beck, Jerry Lee Lewis and Peter Gabriel.

Better For You and collaborators

After touring widely and appearing at major blues festivals in Canada in 2011 and 2012, Antonik returns with Better For You. The album is described as a personal and reflective set of songs about rebuilding relationships, putting others first and developing a moral code. Antonik sings lead on most of the tracks, and the record includes guest vocals from Mike Mattison, Shakura S’Aida and Josh Williams, who also plays keyboards throughout the album.

Other contributors include Chris Chiarelli on drums and Andrew Taylor on bass, who form the rhythm section again. Guest appearances also come from Steve Marriner and Julian Fauth, both Juno Award-winning blues musicians, as well as Suzie Vinnick and Richard Underhill, who arranges all of the horns. The album is co-produced by Antonik and Ted Onyszczak, recorded by Grammy Award-winning engineer Jeremy Darby at Toronto’s Canterbury Studios, and contains 10 original songs written or co-written by Antonik plus one cover version.

Recognition

Alongside his Maple Blues Award nomination, Antonik is described in a year-end review by Canada’s Blues Underground Network as “the future of the blues.” His song “Roll with It” also helps establish his early critical profile through the International Songwriting Competition recognition.