WAWA MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023

Our 2023 Artist List will be updated soon.

MIKE LYNCH

Hailing from Niagara, Mike Lynch is one of Canada’s hardest working singer songwriters and performers. His brand of country music is as real, honest, and authentic as it comes!
Having performed coast to coast, playing some of the biggest stages in the country; he’ll tell you this is the real reason he wanted to be a traveling singer. Mike says, “ I love the road, I love the scenery, but I mostly love a fun crowd”…   A seasoned performer, Mike has shared stages with legends Fred Eaglesmith, Willie P. Bennett, Charlie Major, Barenaked Ladies, The Skydiggers & Roger Hodgeson of Supertramp, among many others.
What to expect: enthusiastic, fun and heartfelt songs, with a warm, traditional country sound.  WMF is pleased to have Mike join us for the first time!

PETER HARBOCIAN

Pete honours his early musical influences from his childhood growing and playing in the Catskills Mountains of New York State.  60’s and 70’s folk, bluegrass, and acoustic music of every kind have shaped his style and sound.  Peter is an accomplished guitarist, vocalist and a seasoned performer.

RODNEY BROWN

A son of Thunder Bay, Rodney has built a career singing roots, rock, reggae and kids songs exploring sounds and recording albums that reflect each phase. With a career spanning 40 years he has released 11 albums and tours extensively across Canada the US and the UK. Appearing at Wawa Music Festival for the first time this season!

MAN FEELINGS

Man Feelings is an alternative rock band, hailing from Northern Ontario, Canada based out of Sault Ste Marie. A group of 4 individuals writing and composing their own music, offering up something different each time.

VICTORIA KRAMKOWSKI

Victoria has been teaching, performing, and sharing the art of bellydance with audiences of all kinds for twenty years. She has performed and taught across Ontario at theatres, street festivals, special events, retreats, and everything in between but is especially excited to be bringing bellydance back to the Wawa Music Festival again!

SUPERIOR LOVE STORY

Features Rusty McCarthy, Maja Bannerman, Don Charbonneau and Joy Thompson.

A modern folktale infused with contemporary jazz and classical music. The performance features multi-disciplinary arts.  intertwining  music, creative dance, spoken word and live painting by 3 visual artists. The storyline follows a lovelorn message in a bottle down Lake Superior to the St Mary’s River. The content features both instrumental compositions and songs inspired by the Algoma region.

FEMBOTS

This powerhouse band of women blend 5 unique vocal styles , and a wide variety of musical instruments, genres and experiences. Generations of family and friends make up this quintet, and you won’t want to miss their chemistry on stage. Stand up bass, guitar, mandolin, ukulele, melodica, percussion and five part harmonies delivered with sass! Don’t miss them in their second appearance at the Wawa Music Festival

CATRIONA STURTON

She sings like an angel and plays like a beast. Rock and roll lover of heavenly and the heaviest blues.  After learning to file harmonica reeds in a back alley, Catriona toured Canada as the bassist for Halifax teen-rockers, Plumtree who inspired the cult-favourite book and movie, Scott Pilgrim, with their song of the same name. She’s played with Italian harmonica wizards, formed a Hiroshima-based garage rock band, and has been a hired harp gun for Canadian folk and indie favourites. She has collaborated with artists like Joel Plaskett, Al Tuck, the late Dutch Mason, the Mighty Popo and members of Sloan and Blue Rodeo after striking out on her own. A multi-instrumentalist, violin, bass, guitar, harmonica, accordion, and shamisen- (also the waffle iron!)   Catriona’s performances are intimate, interactive, and captivating.

Learn more: https://catrionasturton.com/

SMOKIES & THE BEAR

We book them every year for our music festival and then cross our fingers that they don’t get called out to fight a forest fire! These MNR Firefighters are also a talented group of musicians who have a hardcore local following. Typically performing to jam packed audiences who dance, clap and sing along to their favourites, Smokies play hook-y originals inspired by everything associated with the North; from maple syrup to campfires, to wearing parkas in May, WMF is looking forward to their return!

THE UNSCENE

For over a decade, the Unscene have been fusing together elements of bluegrass, power pop, folk, rock, blues and exceptional harmonies. A long time Wawa Music Festival fan favourite, this band delivers a high energy show that’s not to be missed! Catch them this year at The Legion.

RUSTY MCCARTHY

The Wawa Music Festival founder, (along with Don Charbonneau) and Artistic Director for WMF; he’s a lifelong musician and artist; a singer, songwriter, producer, engineer, and one of the finest Blues and Jazz guitarist on the scene. With a career spanning over three decades; he’s shared the stage with some of the finest performers in the world. As a free-lance guitarist, Rusty has played with pop’s Alanah Myles, Tom Cochrane, Bare Naked Ladies, and has played Blues with Jeff Healey and The Blues Brothers, as well as Jazz with Holly Cole and Molly Johnson. His musical projects have taken him around the world, often as band leader and guitarist with Mary Margaret O’Hara.  He also appears with his partner, Maja Bannerman, collaborating on theatre, cabaret, and musical projects that incorporate live painting as performance.

THE HUSTLE BROTHERS

If you love dancing to  R&B, Motown, Soul and Funk, then don’t miss this dynamic act! Playing classics and funky originals,long time festival favourites ‘The Hustle Brothers’ are gonna make you sweat! They cap off Saturday with a high energy, dance party at Woody’s Pub/Lakeview Hotel!

GOODTIMERS

The Goodtimers are long time local favorites- They are guaranteed to get you up and dancing with their mix of oldies and country classics, so drop in and catch them on their home turf, The Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 429 for a foot stompin’ good time!

RUSTY & MAJA

Rusty McCarthy and Maja Bannerman are part kitchen party, part cabaret. Expect a little silliness, a little pathos, and a musical merry go round of songs and spoken word delivered with delight and attitude!

DOC COUSINEAU

Hmmm……Doug remembers racing marbles up and down the neck of his Dads’ guitar (broken string)…was then sent to live with distant relatives…..back home till that incident with the model A. Rock and rolled at 13yrs, and life changed with the release of “Like a Rolling Stone “.  Made friends and influenced people till health issues forced playing in more than one key and the cessation of singing monotone. (In the Rockies it’s rumored).  Then a few foggy bits; rescuing a few damsels, couple a day jobs. Stumbled onto music theory, bar gigs, road bands, romantic entanglements, et al.

DON CHARBONNEAU

“…His music comes from a place we all know well, a place we call home. Leaky boats, motors that flood, big rolling Lake Superior waves, fish stories trapping, mining and The Group of Seven. Good old Northern Ontario…”This Northern Ontario fishing guide, artist and songwriter, writes and paints about the land he loves, lives and works on”. Performing this year with ‘The Lost Guides’, Don travels coast to coast in song, reflecting his love of the land and the stories it reveals.

FRANK DERESTI & THE LAKE EFFECT

Frank Deresti is a versatile musician with a long roster of credits to his name; composer, collaborator, session musician, teacher and performer, just to name a few. His project with The Lake Effect breaks new ground and showcases elements of folk, jazz, pop, country and soul. Their dynamic, one-of-a-kind show is a must-see.
Find out more- frankderesti.ca

DEAD WAITS

This duo began as a campfire jam, and ended with two ex- strangers sharing a whiskey on the rocks, and naming their future band inspired by their shared love of Tom Waits. Embracing the dark, and darkly comic, the weird, the lost, & the lonely, their songs will take you up the tracks a ways, down a back alley, pull up a chair for you on the stoop, and hand you a glass. Reunited for their 4th WMF appearance, you can catch them this year at the Royal Canadian Legion branch 429 stage, in the Pub Room

MIKE WARD

Detroit singer-songwriter Mike Ward is known for his lyrically-centric, vocally-charged folk songs. While growing up in Port Huron, Michigan, he listened to the Irish music of his heritage and sang in several choirs before digesting the influential sounds of Simon & Garfunkel, Dylan, Springsteen and John Prine. These days, he finds inspiration in the works of Jason Isbell, Sarah Jarosz and John Paul White. His intimate songwriting echoes through empty city streets, back country roads and family portraits. It also resides in the hidden spaces between joy and tragedy, love and loss.

PAULA VALOIS

Paula Valois has been singing and playing guitar since she was a kid. As a teenager, she discovered Kris Kristofferson and wore that record out learning to play his songs. She loves the folk root sounds of Nancy Griffith and Brandi Carlisle, and the bluesy sound of Patti Griffin.

RICK CHARBONNEAU

Hailing from Northern Ontario, Rick’s richly descriptive and finely crafted songs capture the heart and soul of real life experiences, and his reverence for nature. A lover of folk, jazz, blues and bluegrass, he has shared stages with Rita Chiarelle, Guy Davis, Ian Tamblyn, Katherine Wheatley and Rusty McCarthy, to name a few. Don’t miss his set as he joins Wawa Music Festival this year!

BRIAN TREMBLAY

Brian Tremblay’s music harkens back to the outlaw country singer/songwriters like Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Steve Earle and Guy Clark. Slipped in with that mix are his early influences of The Beatles and The Monkees. It was the songwriter’s storytelling ability that he was drawn to, and his own original stories in song reflect this. Don’t miss him at Wawa Music Fest this year!

JOSH NORLING

Saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, he has been a part of the music community in SSM, On, since 2004. In that time he recorded and performed with numerous groups in a diverse range of styles. As a sideman, His versatility can be heard in alternative/folk/pop with Frank Deresti and The Lake Effect, folk/rock with Leaves Off Trees, prog rock with Machines Dream, blues with Rusty McCarthy, motown/soul/RnB with The Hustle Brothers, Jazz with the rhythm section, and big band swing with The Sault Symphony Jazz All-Stars. Josh also teaches at the Algoma Conservatory of Music and Algoma University- He is a veteran of the Wawa Music Fest, and appears this year with The Jazz Cats!

DAVE ANICH BAND

The Dave Anich Band is a group of long time friends that enjoy making music together and having fun! With influences ranging from country, bluegrass, roots and folk, and blended harmonies this high energy group engages audiences and is not to be missed this Festival season!

JOANNE POISSON & MARISA VALOIS-CHRISTIE

Joanne Poisson was born into a musical family and raised in the beautiful northern town of Wawa. Growing up in a musical family, she started piano lessons at the age of 8. A natural musician who quickly mastered classical music, she went on to study with the Royal Conservatory. A music teacher for 30 years, she also released her debut album, Wildflower, in 2022. Joanne will be performing with Marisa Valois this weekend at the Jamie Charbonneau Memorial Stage.
Marisa Valois was born into a musical family and raised in Hawk Junction. Joanne was her piano teacher at 6. They performed together for the first time when Marisa was 10. Now a music teacher at Superior Heights Collegiate, She’s performed in many musicals in SSM, various rock bands, and achieved Vocal Certificate through the Royal Conservatory of Music. She will be performing this WMF with Joanne Poisson.

OCCXPIED

Hailing from Wawa, this small-town rapper turned lyrical storyteller overcame a hockey injury to occupy space in hip-hop. He seeks to inspire resilience through his music, and is a devoted father. See him take the stage in Woody’s Pub this Wawa Music Festival weekend! 

ALEX CHARBONNEAU

Homegrown talent, Alex lived and worked as an artist in Montreal for over a decade, in bands such as Bats in the Belfry, Fisher, and The Arnold Sisters. She is a tender story teller of tales with rough edges, influenced by Bobbie Gentry, minor chords and high lonesome country.