The blues have always had a place for heartbreak, but Charm takes a very different approach and is all about the joy, the passion and the excitement of being in a loving relationship.
Charm have an interesting take on the blues with ‘The Anti-Blues’. Rather than the usual fare of betrayal, heartbreak and a relationship that’s gone south, it’s all about the joy of being with someone who makes your life better. It’s a blues song in all the right ways, but with the exact opposite of the sadness that you’d normally associate with the genre.
The concept goes well beyond the title track. The Anti-Blues is a 4 track EP with every track in the same vein, all celebrating the positive aspects of love and relationships. Best Thing, The Anti-Blues, That’s Alright and Ain’t Got The Blues are all part of a collection which is very much about love, about passion and the joy of being in a relationship. Instead of using the blues as a vehicle for moaning about love, Charm have turned the genre on its head and used it as a vehicle for the celebration of a relationship that is working. It’s a cheeky concept but it does give the project a real identity. What’s so appealing about the concept is the contrast between the subject matter and the music. Charm describe the songs as basically blues with a jazzy feel. That provides a very familiar musical base and allows the lyrics and the whole message to go in a different direction. The blues element is still very much there but the emotional destination is a lot more upbeat. You don’t need a broken heart to make a blues song work and that’s the point that Charm is making with this collection.
Her connection to these styles dates back to her teens in Vancouver where she was exposed to a number of classically trained musicians who were into jazz, blues, opera and big band music. She also spent well over 30 years listening to the CBC programming in that genre and developed a real fondness for artists and bandleaders such as Earl Bostic and Tommy Dorsey. Those early influences obviously made their way into her own songwriting. Charm’s story as a songwriter is also a fascinating one. She’d been writing songs for some 30 years prior to 2026, but had no formal musical training at all until January of that year. That’s when she started singing in public for the first time, having previously been utterly unable to perform in front of an audience. By June 2026 she’d written 27 songs and had also formed a band. It’s an incredible period of output and activity for someone who is now bringing so much of her past output into the world. With The Anti-Blues Charm is doing something different from the standard relationship blues record. The four tracks are all about love and happiness and use the blues and jazz influences to express the very feelings that are normally absent from the genre. The concept is simple, and that’s part of its appeal really. There’s as much reason to sing about a relationship that’s working as there is to sing about a relationship that’s broken. Charm takes that very idea and builds a rather distinctive and cheerful record around it.
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