SARATOGA SPRINGS — On a Tuesday evening in 2018 Mark Tolstrup walked into Gaffney’s on Caroline Street for Rick Bolton’s Open Mic. That same evening Jill Marie Burnham was performing, with Rick Bolton accompanying on guitar. She sang a song by Ida Cox recorded somewhere around 1926. Mark took notice. The next week he returned to Gaffney’s, “To check out what was going on with this woman,” he said. “I asked her to sing with me. The first song we did was a Gospel tune by The Staples Singers, “What Ya Gonna Do?” In that moment Mark & Jill Sing the Blues was born.
Last month the duo won an Eddie Award for Best Blues Act. “I was nominated before,” said Tolstrup. “That was when Jill and I first got together. It’s a fun event but I’ll tell you this, it’s more fun when you win. And this time it’s the two of us, so that’s special.” This month they will represent the Capital District at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.
Burnham grew up in Texas where her musical journey was similar to most young people. “We had a piano in the house, and they put me in piano lessons,” she said. “Apparently, I was singing in those lessons, and the teacher told my mother I could sing. In middle school she joined choir and band, playing first chair clarinet through high school. She learned to sing harmony in choir.
Burnham moved to the Saratoga Springs area nine years ago and went through a “fairly traumatic divorce.” “I had no friends. The kids were going to their dad’s every other weekend, and I thought what the heck am I going to do?”
On a whim she and her youngest daughter auditioned for a local theater group. After a performance the piano player and drummer asked if Jill would sing with them for a benefit at their church. Some time later at Saratoga Winery, musician Tim Wechgelaer was performing and asked her to join him. He recommended that she meet Rick Bolton, known for making connections between musicians. Burnham performed at a few of Bolton’s open mics, and then one night Tolstrup was there.
Growing up in Boston, Tolstrup lived with his grandmother. “In those days there was no radio or television,” he said, “so people sat around the piano and sang. We would sing the Gospel songs,” Tolstrup said. “You don’t know what your grandparents were like when they were young, but when she played those tunes her left hand was rockin.’” He started playing the blues in high school. In the early 2000’s he connected with Dale Haskell and Tony Markelis in a trio where he played mostly electric guitar. He also played in New Orleans jazz ensembles with horns, including a tuba. “Playing with those guys is how I learned more chords. They play more complex arrangements, so I got better by playing with them.”
Tolstrup and Burnham met in 2018 and first performed together in 2019 for the Capital Region Blues Challenge at Cafe Lena. They had no thought of winning, but it would be a point of focus to work up to. They won. “We had done one gig,” Tolstrup recalled. “And now we’re going to Memphis for the International Blues Challenge in January 2020. So, I booked us a few other gigs just to get some stage time.”
Last week, they were selected Blues Artists of The Year at the 4th annual Thomas Edison Capital Region Music Awards. In his acceptance speech at The Eddies, Tolstrup commented that the music he and Burnham play was created by people who in the midst of slavery and hard lives sang to one another. “They sang in the fields, and they sang on their front porches,” he said. “They sang to each other and they sang about their lives. That music really is the root of most American music, and really the root of most Rock & Roll.”
To learn more about Mark & Jill Sing the Blues, visit their website www.rootblues.com, or their Facebook page.
