Tom Lavin (Born July 13, 1950) is a Chicago-born musician and record producer and founding member of the Juno Award winning (1981) Canadian group, the Powder Blues Band. The band has headlined the world-famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, won the Blues Foundation Award in Memphis, Tennessee and toured the US and Europe with legends like Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, James Brown, Albert Collins, James Cotton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Leader, Tom Lavin has written many of the band’s best-known songs including ‘Doin’ It Right’ a SOCAN Classics Winner and ‘Boppin With the Blues’. Tom Lavin has won BCMIA awards for ‘Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter and Producer of the Year’, a Juno award for ‘Best New Band’ and the American W.C. Handy Blues Music Award.
As a record producer, Lavin worked with a number of well-known artists including Long John Baldry, Amos Garrett, Denise McCann and Susan Jacks of the Poppy Family fame. He has over a dozen gold, and platinum records for Powder Blues, Prism, April Wine, Long John Baldry, Amos Garrett, and many others. Lavin played guitar on Prism's self-titled album, Prism (1977) on GRT Records, and guitar and drums on the Dale Jacobs and Cobra album for CBS Records (1977).
As a composer, Lavin is credited with the soundtrack scores for Cannes-nominated Out of the Blue (1980), a film directed by and featuring Dennis Hopper, and Genie Award winning My American Cousin (1985) directed by Sandy Wilson.
Recent CDs produced by Lavin include Juno Award nominated James Buddy Rogers 'My Guitar's My Only Friend' and 'Rollin' With the Blues Boss' by Kenny 'Blues Boss' Wayne Stony Plain Records. Lavin continues to record and perform as Tom Lavin & the Legendary Powder Blues Band and is also currently director of the Pacific Audio Visual Institute.