The Hupman Brothers came to the 2011 festival as the reigning ECMA winners for Blues Recording of the Year, having taken the award in 2010 for their album Countin' Quarters. They were on a run. Four albums in four years, a growing reputation across the East Coast, and a live show that people were starting to talk about.
They played twice that week. Wednesday night at the Shipyard in Summerside for the Vector Blues Bash, and Thursday night at Murphy's Community Centre in Charlottetown. Two different rooms, two different crowds, same band.
The band
Ryan Hupman on vocals and electric guitar. Scot Hupman on vocals and bass. Caleb Miles on vocals and electric guitar. Bob Federer on organ. Mike Carroll on drums. Ian Sherwood was playing sax with them around this time too, though he is not listed in the original festival bio.
The Hupmans are brothers from Nova Scotia, and they have been playing together their whole lives. You can hear that in the way they trade lines and finish each other's phrases. It is the kind of thing that takes years to build and cannot be faked.
The album
Loveseat Volume 1 had come out the year before, in late 2010. It was their first fully electric record. A review at the time described it as tearing through blues, classic R&B, funk, soul, and straight up rock, with tracks that would make Stevie Ray Vaughan, Marvin Gaye, and Herbie Hancock all proud . The reviewer also noted that the two instrumental tracks, "Bobbleberry Jam" and "Big Naturals," were among the best on the album, and that the band's cover of styles from the 30s and 40s felt fresh rather than dusty .
Two songs from the record, "Bobbleberry Jam" and "She Got Mad," were semifinalists in the 2010 International Songwriting Competition. That is a big deal for a band from the Annapolis Valley.
That week
The Summerside show on the Wednesday was part of the festival's push to spread events beyond Charlottetown. The Shipyard was a good room for it, and the bill had the Hupmans sharing the stage with other blues acts. The local paper previewed the show and called them "a contemporary approach to the legacy of early blues" . Fair description.
The Thursday show at Murphy's was the main stage slot. A Charlottetown crowd, a festival crowd, the kind of room where a band either rises to the occasion or does not. By all accounts the Hupmans rose. The band was tight, the songs were sharp, and Ryan's guitar playing had that Duane Allman channeling quality that reviewers kept mentioning.
Since then
The Hupmans kept going. They released Black River Blues in 2014, and they are still playing together. A 2025 show listing describes them as playing "blues and rootsy folk with a nod to ragtime and swing," and notes that they have been playing music together all their lives . Some things do not change.
For the current festival, head to the schedule page or the main lineup page. This archive is kept for looking back.