Horns blazing, piano rolling and a big, generous heart at the centre of it all, Brandon Isaak is back with "World's Got the Blues," a rousing new single from his eighth solo album, 'Lookin' Out My Window,' both out now on Modern Primitive Records. The album follows his triumphant 2025 release 'Walkin' With the Blues,' which won three of its five Canadian Blues Music Award nominations: Electric Blues Album of the Year, Blues Song of the Year and Blues Guitar Player of the Year. "I came home from Toronto incredibly grateful," Isaak says, "and then I did what I always do. I went back to work."
"World's Got the Blues" takes stock of hard times, from rising prices to the shouting matches on the nightly news, and answers them with a warm, irresistible invitation to come together. "Let's try something new, don't seem that hard to do / Let's love one another, and I'm starting with you," Isaak sings, before rallying listeners in the final verse: "Let's do better, you know we can / We the people, well we'll make a stand." For Isaak, writing songs like this one comes with the job. "I believe part of my responsibility as an artist is to hold up a mirror to the world around me," he explains. "Music can reflect what we're going through, ask questions, challenge us, and sometimes simply remind us that we're not the only ones feeling what we're feeling."
Across 'Lookin' Out My Window,' Isaak found inspiration everywhere he looked: a phrase that caught his ear, a conversation with a friend, a headline he couldn't shake. He even wrote through the eyes of his 20-year-old daughter as she embarked on her own adventures in love. "For this album, I even found myself writing through my daughter's eyes and her new adventures in love and relationships," he says. Every day he headed down to his studio or out to the back porch to sharpen those ideas, trusting that each rough sketch could bloom into something special. "Bad ideas can be the best fertilizer," he says with a grin. "You throw them on the ground, give them some attention, keep digging, and every once in a while, something starts to grow."
Once the songs were ready, Isaak called in his band, The Saints of Swing, a crew of A list players drawn from the Vancouver blues scene: Darryl Havers on piano, keys and organ, Rob Becker on bass, Chris "The Wrist" Nordquist on drums and tambourine, Jerry Cook and Paul Wainwright on saxophones, Marty Shepard on trumpet and Nadine States on backing vocals. Cook, who co-wrote the album's horn arrangements with Isaak, was named Sax Player of the Year at the 2025 Canadian Blues Music Awards. "They listen, they feel it, they add things, subtract things, change things and bring their own personalities and experience into the music," Isaak says. "Sometimes they take an idea somewhere I never would have thought of going. That collaboration is one of my favourite parts of making a record."
Isaak produced, engineered and mixed the album himself at Modern Primitive Studios, then sent it to Marc L'Esperance at Vancouver's heavyOsonic Studios for mastering. "Every song passed through my hands from the first rough idea all the way to the final mix," he says. The album features cover art by painter David Goatley and liner notes by Dan Casavant, who calls Isaak "a thinking man's blues artist" whose music also has "a very joyful, playful and, at times humorous side." Isaak's wife, Cindy Mae, coordinated the project, and he credits her as "my rock and shining light."
Born in Whitehorse, Yukon and now based in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, Isaak grew up watching his father play music professionally. Over 39 years in music, he has carried his songs across three continents and eight countries, including 13 European tours, and picked up three JUNO Award nominations along the way. His sound carries echoes of Taj Mahal, B.B. King and Lightnin' Hopkins, along with the guitar and vocal styles of heroes like Ronnie Earl, Anson Funderburgh, Sam Myers and T-Bone Walker, all filtered through a songwriting voice that moves easily from thoughtful to funny to spiritual. Onstage, the multi-instrumentalist pairs firebrand guitar and harmonica with a gravelly voice that surprises everyone who hears it, pulling every crowd into the show and sending fans home humming his melodies. His catalogue includes 'Bluesman's Plea' (2011), 'Here on Earth' (2014), 'Big City, Back Country Blues' (2017), 'Rise n' Shine' (2018), 'Modern Primitive' (2021), 'One Step Closer' (2023) and 'Walkin' With the Blues' (2025).
Above all, Isaak hopes the album brings people together. "Being part of this vibrant Canadian blues community fills me with pride," he says. "We need to stick together to nurture and grow this fantastic blues community, ensuring that this timeless music remains alive and well in our beautiful country." And true to form, he is already hard at work on what comes next. "I make them from the heart," he says. "I give them 100% of whatever I've got. And the funny thing is, the second one is finished, I'm already looking for the next song."
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