CURRENT EVENTS SPURRED JOHN LENNON DOCUMENTARY TO GAIN STEAM 

FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION TO OFFER FREE HEALTH INSURANCE ADVICE TO MUSICIANS

The Washington DC-based non-profit organization Future of Music Coalition has implemented a health insurance guidance program for musicians called the Health Insurance Navigation Tool (HINT).  To assist the well-being of U.S. -based independent art and music curators, the HINT program will provide information at the FMC website www.futureofmusic.org/hint and will also offer free phone consultations with experts to discuss affordable health coverage options available to artists and musicians.
 
According to a 2002 survey conducted by the Future of Music Coalition, musicians who earn even a portion of their income playing music are less likely to have health insurance than the general population.  Of nearly 3000 participants, the survey found that those individuals who are young and healthy feel coverage is an unnecessary expense and most (76%) guess that on a musician's budget they are unable to afford the payments.  

Survey results available online at www.futureofmusic.org/research/healthsurveyresults.cfm

 Yet, in the case of those who lack health insurance and delay or forego health care until situations get desperate, or as a result of a catastrophic event, patients can very easily find themselves in an even more dire situation, accumulating medical bills that may leave them with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
 
As a safety net for working artists and musicians who remain uninsured, HINT's insurance consultants will help those interested to navigate through the often confusing process of obtaining health insurance. Taking into consideration an individual's unique situations -- fluctuating income due to month-to-month varying performance schedules, state of residence, age and health -- the agents can direct musicians to websites and regional organizations that offer assistance or health insurance plans appropriate to meet their specific long-term health coverage needs.
 
Those interested in scheduling a free and confidential 30-minute phone consultation with the HINT team are encouraged to visit www.futureofmusic.org/hint  and "Get The Hint."
 
HINT is made possible by a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
 
For more information on the HINT program, please contact Call Girl PR at 773-205-8688 or email Stolie stolie@callgirlpr.com

Record Label News:

Please join us in welcoming the latest edition to the Delta Groove family

- the Phantom Blues Band. Originally formed as a studio band to record behind Taj Mahal on his albums, they've since circled the globe together performing at major Blues and Jazz festivals in Europe, Australia and Japan. Their association with Taj Mahal led to two consecutive Grammy wins in addition to 2001 W.C. Handy Award recipients as "Band Of The Year." Look for their debut release "Out of the Shadows" on Delta Groove Productions coming November 2006.

- the Jackie Payne Steve Edmonson Band. The recording session for their upcoming release "Master of the Game" took place in July, is set for a street date of October 17th, and features a mixture of Southern Soul influenced vocals and slashing West Side Chicago style guitar.

NEW BLUES CLUB

The NEW OWNERS of the The Stanhope House in Stanhope NJ have made a serious re-commitment to bring the Blues back in and welcome patronage  by  members of local Blues societies.

The Stanhope House is a circa 1790 Hotel and Stagecoach Stop that featured the best in National Blues acts for decades,including Muddy, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Albert Collins, Snooky Pryor, Buddy and Junior, Jimmy Rogers and hundreds MORE.  It sits just a few miles off of Route 80 about 40 minutes from NYC in the woods of NJ.  It is a wonderful music room.

For more information visit (http://www.stanhopehouse.com/)

Roots Music Report Announces Recipients of its 2006 Radio Stations of the Year Award

Roots Music Report is pleased to announce its selections for radio stations of the year. Recipients were selected by staff of RMR after carefully listening to the programming first hand and were selected based on their format and variety of music played. This year's list of honors signifies the first acknowledgements in what is planned  to be an annual event. 

The award serves to recognize the stations commitment to and support of its roots based genre. "These stations seem to give all artist a chance to be heard," says RMR owner/operator Robert Bartosh. "They are all consistent reporting stations to our charts and contribute immensely to the roots music movement." 

Designated honors for 2006 were presented to the following stations:

Bluegrass - WTCR - Huntington, West Virginia

Roots/Americana - KRVL - Kerville, Texas

Roots/Rock - XCountry - Satellite

True Country - KMCO - McAlester, Oklahoma

Western Swing - KBEC - Waxahachie, Texas

Folk - KCLC - St. Charles, Missouri

Blues - Blues Deluxe - Arlington, Texas

This is the 19th year for BLUES DELUXE, a weekly, one-hour presentation of rock and traditional blues music heard across the U.S., in Canada and around the world! 

Jazz - WFDU - Teaneck, New Jersey

While WFDU may have won for Jazz, included in their weekly programming are shows dedicated exclusively to Blues - 

"Nothing But the Blues" with E.B. Fisher and "Sounds of Blue" with Bob Putignano (who is also President of the The New York Blues Society)

Congratulations to all!

MYSPACE AND SNOCAP ANNOUCE MAJOR DIGITAL MUSIC PARTNERSHIP

MySpace, the leading lifestyle portal for discovering culture, announced a partnership with SNOCAP, the first end-to-end provider of digital licensing and copyright management services for the digital music marketplace, that dramatically expands the digital music marketplace for artists and fans everywhere. MySpace will provide artists and record labels with unique tools that enable them to sell their music from their profile pages and distribute a digital storefront across the community.

The MySpace and SNOCAP music service is expected to be available broadly in the United States by the end of 2006.

BLUES ARTISTS ON THE RISE

Next week, the Blues Festival E-Guide and Sonic Bids will be announcing the second "Blues Artist on the Rise" contest winner..

FESTIVAL REPORT

Come home to the blues at the 29th Mississippi Delta Blues & Heritage Festival on September 16 in Greenville, MS. 

 Entertainers include Denise LaSalle, Steve Azar, Mel Waiters, Jerry Kattawar, T Model Ford, and many others.  The Festival is sponsored by M.A.C.E., a non-profit that will use the proceeds for preserving the heritage of the Delta, assisting Katrina and Rita evacuees, and helping the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund.  For more information, please visit www.deltablues.org and www.nomhrf.org. 

The Blues Festival E-Guide will be following for the next several weeks the blues travels of newlyweds Tom Yearnshaw and Cheryl O'Grady. Cheryl is a sales rep for The Blues Festival Guide magazine, enjoying the fruits of her labors.

ON THE BLUE HIGHWAY WITH

 TOM AND CHERYL

It’s Just A Family Affair… 

The 16th Annual Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival was held over this past Labor Day weekend in the Rentiesville, Oklahoma back yard and home of founders DC and Selby Minner, .  Back yard and Home???   That’s Right!!!  But there’s a story here.  Tradition, too. 

Years ago, DC’s grandmother ran a “corn whiskey house” on this hallowed site in rural Oklahoma.  When DC and Selby decided to take some of the “move” out of their road-weary band, “Blues On The Move,” DC grabbed Selby and headed “back home,” where they moved into Grandma’s old place, settled into the ‘quiet life in the country’ (HA!!!), and set part of their house aside to be ‘The Down Home Blues Club’.

Dusk Til Dawn -- that’s 5 PM to 5 AM, folks, ‘cause it’s usually warm in Rentiesville in the daytime -- grew from its origins as an annual event at the club.  A few years back, as the show got bigger, DC and Selby converted their unofficial not-for-profit child into a full fledged, official 501(c)(3) non-profit ‘teenager,’ including many from their dedicated ‘family’ of volunteers on the Board.

Everything about Dusk Til Dawn is a ‘family’ affair.  The Minners are still very dedicated and integral to the show, taking the lead role in organizing and presenting the event and in performing twice nightly for the three-day show.  Their extended ‘family’ includes 12 Board Members, over 100 volunteers, and thousands of dedicated fans.  Many of these folks have been returning each year since the very beginning.

Several weeks before the show, volunteers, some who come several thousand miles to help, begin to work the magic that transforms the ‘back forty’ into the festival site.  Three-foot tall grasses are mowed into a comfortable ‘lawn.’  Power is run so vendors can sell t-shirts, jewelry, barbeque, fried fish, candy, ice cream, and even ‘fried pies.’  The Kid’s Village sprouts up around an old school bus (the Kid’s Village is just too much and gets a paragraph of its own below), and a circus-sized tent miraculously appears before the main outdoor stage to complete the ‘mirage.’  The “Down Home Blues Club,” which is now in semi-retirement and only open once a month, gets a quick dusting, some posters and lights to liven its interior, and its Festival time. 

This year’s show presented 30 bands on three stages over the three-day run.  The mix, as it has been from the beginning, was rich in the Oklahoma blues tradition (James Walker, Tony Matthews, and Barry Harris – to name just a few) but also included national and regional acts such as Rory Block, James Peterson, and Johnny Rawls.  The line up even included several groups of young blues musicians from as far away as Dallas, and to keep things moving between acts, a rich variety of acoustic blues was presented throughout the evening.

In keeping with DC’s and Selby’s active participation in the Oklahoma school system through their innovative ‘Blues in the Schools’ programs, the Kid’s Village has also been a big part of the event.  Face painting, costumes, ‘dragons’ (a la Chinese New Years parades), clay pottery, and puppet shows are made lovingly available by a group of exceptional volunteers.  These are all hands-on activities, keeping young minds occupied while the hypnotic sounds of blues slowly soak into the young minds that will be the future of the blues.  This Kid’s Village is unlike anything we’ve seen before!!! 

Around 5 AM Monday morning, the mirage begins to fade.  The corner of Rentiesville Road and DC Minner Road slowly begins its transformation back to a peaceful country corner, the echoes of 30 great bands being slowly absorbed into the still Oklahoma dawn.  The Down Home Blues Club lets out a slow sigh as it slips back into the comfort of semi-retirement, and the grasses are already starting to grow back.  But this is truly a play land with a once-a-year mission to spread its owner’s vision of The Blues far and wide.

There are fitting footnotes to this story and to DC and Selby Minner’s long devotion to the blues tradition.  Over the weekend, Selby Minner (along with Elvin Bishop, Junior Markham, Steve Pryor, James Walker, and Frank Swain) was inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame, DC Minner received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame, and September 1, 2006 was declared DC Minner Day throughout Oklahoma by Governor Brad Henry.  ‘Congratulations’ are indeed in order for all.

After saying goodbye to our new found family in Rentiesville we’re back on the road in Blues Country and will keep you posted.

--  Tom and Cheryl