Downchild Blues Band
formed 1969
Toronto blues band, named for a Sonny Boy Williamson song, whose bar-band repertoire the Blues Brothers carried onto American radio.
Downchild was formed in Toronto in 1969 by the guitarist and harmonica player Donnie “Mr. Downchild” Walsh and his brother, the singer Richard “Hock” Walsh, and took its name from Sonny Boy Williamson's “Mr. Downchild.” Two years as house band at Grossman's Tavern built the jump-and-Chicago-blues style that made them Canada's first nationally known blues act, with the 1973 hit “Flip, Flop and Fly.” Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi modeled the Blues Brothers on the Walsh brothers and recorded two Downchild songs — “(I Got Everything I Need) Almost” and “Shot Gun Blues” — on Briefcase Full of Blues in 1978.