COINCIDENCES: A Whole Lotta Higgins

TORONTO (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Higgins, Higgins everywhere …

Missy, Little Miss, Emily and a seeming army of Higgins folk are suddenly crowding the schedules of roots music tours and record releases in this part of the world.

It's not a name you'd think ambitious artists would adopt with glee. It's sort of ordinary and old-fashioned, a name you'd see in a Dickens novel attached to a libidinous coal miner or a sad butler.

But since it's the name they were born with, the musical Higginses are disinclined to adopt another, even if the preponderance of Higginses leads to mass confusion, as it surely will when Little Miss Higgins and Missy Higgins cross paths in Toronto over the next few days.

In the interests of helping readers and roots-music fans determine one Higgins from another, we've prepared this simple dossier:

Little Miss Higgins (Cameron House tomorrow, Hugh's Room Saturday) hails from Nokomis, Sask., via Independence, Kansas and central Alberta. A rising country blues star, Little Miss plays a vintage 1950s Kay Galaxie electric guitar like a seasoned blues mama.

Her second album, Junction City, is a nominee for blues album of the year in this year's Juno Awards.

Missy Higgins (El Mocambo Sunday) practices a nonchalant blend of jazz and acoustic country akin to the style of Norah Jones, but not so poised and porcelain. A multi-award-winning singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, Missy is a veteran of the Australian festival circuit and recently performed several sold-out shows in Los Angeles.

Emily Higgins, a singer-songwriter from Springfield, Missouri.

British Columbia family country-folk band The Higgins, who have become West Coast festival hits since their formation in 1998.–by Greg Quiill of the Toronto Star