BLUES NEWS ARCHIVE

Welcome to our weekly events calendar! Below are the events and activities happening at the B.B. King Museum and Club Ebony in the next 7 days. For updates on these or other events, please check our Facebook page and website.

The Artist and Song with the Most Votes receives Four Months of having your Song Featured on our Top Ranking Blues Website.

The winners of the 34th annual Blues Music Awards, the highest honor given to Blues artists, were announced last night at the gala event at the Cook County Convention Center in Memphis, TN. Congratulations from the Blues Festival Guide to all of the winners and nominees:

(Isleton, CA) " Bringing music back to Main Street" is one of the proud key elements of the 2013 Cajun &Blues Festival set for Father's Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday, June 15-16 on Main Street in the Delta hamlet of Isleton, CA.
National headliners like blues legend/Grammy winner Elvin Bishop and two impressive Cajun bands flying in direct from Louisiana, The Lost Bayou Ramblers and The Magnolia Sisters (with Grammy winner Ann Savoy) will top the line-up.
Also on the bill are Bay Area Louisiana music favorites, Andre Thierry & Zydeco Magic, The Creole Belles with Andrew Carriere, and the 2012 Blues Music Award winner, Terry Hanck and his sizzling blues/soul band. Portland, Oregon's blues diva, Karen Lovely is a barnburner. Oakland's rising blues stars, Howell Devine (Arhoolie Records recording artists) will play both days.

Brownsville, Tennessee, will celebrate its blues heritage Memorial Day weekend with the Exit 56 Blues Fest Saturday, May 25, at the Delta Heritage Center. The annual event presents live Blues from the porch of legendary Blues pioneer Sleepy John Estes' home.

Beginning at noon, 15-yr-old Dylan Whitney of Bixby, Ok., will take the stage. Known as the "Whiz Kid of Blues," he is a very mature guitar player. Tyler Goodson of Jackson, Tenn., didn't start "giggin" until he was 21 and now he plays regularly in Jackson and on Beale Street. Bluesberry Jam Band is a group of West Tennessee natives working to preserve the regions blues and roots tradition. Pep Rally Losers play the raw blues with a sprinkle of rock.

The Blues Foundation has announced the 2012 inductees for the Blues Hall of Fame, including Chicago harp master Billy Boy Arnold; blues-rock guitar virtuoso Mike Bloomfield; brother/sister recording act Buddy & Ella Johnson; South Louisiana swamp blues artist Lazy Lester; Memphis bluesmen Furry Lewis and Frank Stokes; guitar genius Matt "Guitar" Murphy; and New Orleans musician, songwriter, an producer Allen Toussaint.

I don't know what was higher...the mighty Mississippi or the spirits at the Blues Awards. What a great time! What a show! Tanya Jones, volunteer
I am one of those saying..."Best Ever!" My heart is still full, and I will be inspired all year by the people and the music! Debbie Davies, 2010 BMA winner

The 33rd Blues Music Awards will be Thursday May 10, 2012 at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

Blues harmonica master James Cotton will join Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, Shemekia Copeland and many other musicians live at New York's famed Apollo Theater to pay tribute to the late guitarist Hubert Sumlin. The event will take place on Friday, February 24 and is a benefit for the Jazz Foundation Of America.

Other artists scheduled to appear are Doyle Bramhall II, Gary Clark, Jr., Billy Flynn, Barrelhouse Chuck Goering, David Johansen, Steve Jordan, Danny Kortchmar, Dr. John, Keb Mo, Todd Mohr, Ivan Neville, Robert Randolph, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Larry Taylor, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Jimmie Vaughan, Jimmy Vivino, Willie Weeks, Jody Williams, Kim Wilson and special surprise guests.

Cotton's latest CD is the Grammy Award-nominated Giant.

The Winner of the band competition is: The WIRED! Band (Washington Blues Society)
Band-2nd place: The Bart Walker Band (Nashville Blues Society);
Band-3rd Place: Paula Harris (The Golden Gate Blues Society)

The winner of the solo/duo competition is: Ray Bonneville (Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas)
Solo/Duo-2nd Place: Dr. Don's Double Dose (Sydney Blues Society).

Also, the Gibson Guitarist Award went to: Bart Walker and the Lee Oskar Top Harmonica Player was awarded to: Randy McQuay.

Several years ago on Christmas Eve I visited a full-security juvenile detention center for teen boys in my hometown to give them a special Christmas gift - harmonicas and Blues lessons through my nonprofit organization, Harmonikids. In my own adolescence, the facility's very name, "Ferris", was used to invoke fear as a deterrent to getting in trouble. Often I was told I would "end up in Ferris" if I didn't "clean up my act". This was about the same time I discovered solace in playing the Blues on a harmonica, which may have actually saved me from going there. Consequently I’ve made it my personal mission to provide these youth the proven benefits of my Harmonikids programs annually. So I guess, in an ironic way I did wind up there - though it was many years later - to provide the healing power of music. Read More...

Online Voting and Ticket Sales Open December 13
Awards to be held in Memphis on May 10th 2012

Memphis, TN (December 13, 2011) – The Blues Foundation is pleased to announce the nominations for their annual Blues Music Awards, which the international organization will present at the Cook Convention Center in downtown Memphis, TN, on May 10, 2012. The Blues Music Awards are universally recognized as the highest accolade afforded musicians and songwriters in Blues music. The annual Blues Music Awards ceremony is the premier event for Blues professionals, musicians, and fans from all over the world. Read More...

2012 marks Michael "Hawkeye" Herman's 34th year of "Blues in the Schools" programs. He began this effort long before most blues support organizations and festivals even existed. Since that time he has helped to initiate educational programs for many blues societies and has single-handedly introduced blues music workshops to major festivals including the San Francisco Folk Festival, The Northwest Folklife Festival (Seattle), the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, the Sonoma County Folk Festival (CA), the Tumbleweed Music Festival (WA), the Rogue Valley Blues Festival (OR), Blues sur Seine Festival (France), the River Music Camp (CA), and most recently at the International Blues Festival (in Cali, Colombia).

In 1998, Hawkeye received the Blues Foundation's "Keeping the Blues Alive" award for achievement in education. He was inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame in 2004. Over the past 34 years, Hawkeye has presented his "Blues In The Schools" programs in more than five hundred schools (all levels; from elementary schools to college level), in twenty-eight states in the USA, in nine foreign nations, and to over 1/2 a million students. The list of institutions that have benefited from his presentations range from Stanford, Colorado, and Arkansas State Universities, to elementary, junior and senior high schools throughout the USA, in Europe, and South America. Read More...

The Blind Boys of Alabama are recognized worldwide as living legends of gospel music. Celebrated by The Grammys and The National Endowment for the Arts with Lifetime Achievement Awards, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, sung for two presidents in the White House and winners of five Grammy® Awards, they have attained the highest levels of achievement in a career that spans over 70 years and shows no signs of diminishing. Longevity and major awards aside, The Blind Boys have earned praise for their remarkable interpretations of everything from traditional gospel favorites to contemporary spiritual material by acclaimed songwriters such as Curtis Mayfield, Ben Harper, Eric Clapton, Prince and Tom Waits.Read More...

Greetings from the BB King Museum Director

Fall is finally here, and at the B.B. King Museum, that means school tours are in abundance!
In October, we welcomed over 200 students from Jackson, Greenville, Lake Village, Arkansas, and even Ghana to the B.B. King Museum for school tours and music workshops. A visit to the B.B. King Museum is not like your typical field trip. Students enjoy an interactive tour led by a trained Museum docent and a music workshop with one of our local bluesmen. Not only do students learn more about one of Mississippi's greatest ambassadors, B.B. King, but they also learn the history of the Mississippi Delta, the Civil Rights Movement, and American music. Students have a blast at the B.B. King Museum. They have even commented that the B.B. King Museum is "da bomb!" Read More...

Just in, National Blues Museum publicity in France.
This helps drive the Int'l awareness and support needed for a project of this scale - Link

Translated by Google.................

All those present of 6 to 8 October 2011 at King Biscuit Festival in Helena, Arkansas, and October 9, 2011 at the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi were impressed by the information campaign conducted by Dave Beardsley to publicize the project National Museum of the blues (National Blues Museum) which should open its doors in downtown St. Louis in 2013. Each viewer (or almost) in the audience was presented with a nice card stock paper front / back postcard size with the project. A real painstaking work in the service of a project for the less ambitious. Read More...

South Delta Planning and Development District Receives National Association of Development Organizations 2011 Innovation Award

WASHINGTON, DC – The South Delta Planning and Development District, based in Greenville, MIssissippi received a 2011 Innovation Award from the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) Research Foundation for the B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center.

NADO is a Washington, DC-based association that promotes programs and policies that strengthen local governments, communities and economies through regional cooperation, program delivery and comprehensive strategies. The association’s Innovation Awards program recognizes regional development organizations and partnering organizations for improving the economic and community competitiveness of our nation’s regions and local communities. Award winners were showcased during NADO’s 2011 Annual Training Conference, held October 8—11 in Miami, Florida. Read More...

Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Awards

Each year, The Blues Foundation presents the Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Awards to individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the Blues world.

Read More...

Jimmy Thackery - Take My Blues-2011

Jimmy Thackery will be one of the amazing performers on the upcoming Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise October 23- 30, 2011. Read More...