Eugene Dong is singing the blues all the way to the bank

By Jagdeesh Mann
Postmedia News 

Borrowing a quote from the legendary Van Morrison as he takes a break at his packed Cottage Bistro on Vancouver’s Main Street, Eugene Dong says: “Hearing the blues changed my life.”
It also changed the blues scene in Vancouver. Two decades ago, Dong left his native China for a new life in Canada and opened a small fish-and-chip shop in White Rock’s Crescent Beach.
“Business was poor and my wife and I were thinking of going back to China, but we decided to stay and try something else,” Dong says.
That “something else” brought Dong to Cottage Bistro -- first as a chef, then as a partner and today, as its owner. Most importantly, Dong became a saviour for Vancouver’s blues musicians.
It began on a hot summer afternoon in 1998 when blues was as foreign to Dong as the local music scene. Jack Lavin, a prominent Vancouver blues musician, walked into an empty Cottage Bistro ordered a beer and some prawns with chips, Dong recalls.
“Jack asked me if I would be interested in turning the place into a blues-music venue . . . I was excited but there was one problem . . . I did not know what blues was,” the affable Dong says.
It didn’t take long for Dong to fall in love with the sounds of the blues. Two months later, with Lavin’s help, Cottage Bistro staged its first live blues act. “The place was jammed and I knew this was what I needed to do,” says Dong, a father of two.
One year later, Dong staged a multi-day blues festival which has become a Vancouver music tradition, as much as Cottage Bistro’s Saturday afternoon jazz sessions with local blues maestro Steve Kozac.
This year’s Cottage Bistro Blues fest, the 12th, runs from Sept. 6 to Sept. 10 and will feature 30 artists.
“In a city with such a limited stock of available venues for performing artists, Cottage Bistro exemplifies the kind of dedicated proprietors that take up the slack,” said Stuart Derdeyn, The Province’s arts columnist.
As Cottage Bistro’s reputation for live music grew, it began attracting the likes of Jeff Simmons, who played with Frank Zappa, Russell Jackson, who played bass with B.B. King, as well as locals such as Kenny Wayne, Joe Mavety, Yukon Slim and Grammy winner Donald Ray Johnson.
Dong now has a bigger dream to promote blues music in Vancouver.
“What we really need is a big outdoor Vancouver blues festival, like the jazz fest or the folk fest,” says Dong, who together with local blues legend Jim Byrne and other musicians are working behind the scenes to persuade the City of Vancouver to allow the event.
“I want this to happen for the local blues musicians . . . they are very talented and this city can become a blues destination,” Dong says.
While blues music is the mainstay of Cottage Bistro, Dong and his wife, Carrie, have also opened their stage to a variety of up-and-coming local musicians looking for a place to showcase their talent.
“We have jazz on Mondays, comedy nights and Sunday soul service,” says Dong, a scotch whisky connoisseur who boasts one of the city’s biggest single-malt collections.
Having trained as a chef, Dong has made the Cottage Bistro’s menu as varied as the music onstage, offering everything from prime-rib burgers to spicy Szechwan Tofu to appeal to the eclectic Main Street crowd.
Local bluesman Jon Gale, whose band performs regularly at Cottage Bistro, sums up Dong’s musical journey best: “Blues has been really good for Eugene, and Eugene has been really good for us.”

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