Sponsored By: Gates Insurance
- Friday 10:00 AM Wolfville Legion
- Saturday 12:30 PM Wolfville Legion
- Sunday 1:40 PM Festival Theatre
Rob Lutes has spent more than two decades quietly building one of the most distinctive bodies of work in Canadian folk and roots music. Montreal-based but shaped by his New Brunswick upbringing as one of six kids in Rothesay, Lutes inhabits the fertile intersection of blues, folk, and Americana with the ease of someone who has made that territory entirely his own. His driving fingerstyle guitar work — as commanding in a Piedmont blues classic as in one of his own original songs — and his soulful, breathy voice create what one reviewer called “quite a sound to hear”: restrained yet virtuosic, intimate yet gripping.
The accolades have followed naturally. A winner at the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competition, a two-time Canadian Folk Music Award Contemporary Singer of the Year, and a multiple nominee from both the CFMAs and the Maple Blues Awards, Lutes has earned the respect of peers and audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. His album The Bravest Birds hit #1 on the Euro-Americana Chart; Walk in the Dark was Folk n Blues Radio’s Album of the Year; and his latest, Come Around, earned four Canadian Folk Music Award nominations alongside a third nod as Maple Blues Acoustic Act of the Year.
What makes a Rob Lutes performance genuinely special — and what makes his return to Deep Roots such a welcome one — is the generosity and curiosity he brings to the stage. An Acadia University alum and a familiar and beloved presence at this festival, he is an artist who feels like family here in the Annapolis Valley. A devoted student of music history, he weaves gems from the past into his sets alongside his own acclaimed songs, offering stories about their creation and enduring relevance that are by turns funny, wise, and illuminating. It is the performance of someone who loves music not just as a craft, but as a living conversation across time — and who invites every audience to pull up a chair and join in.
Rob’s Deep River Blues (Rob Lutes)
Live at La Vielle Usine, L’Anse à Beaufils, Quebec, July 30, 2023
Rob Lutes – Guitar and vocals
Rob MacDonald – Resophonic guitar
