Memphis, TN "Twenty-two individuals and organizations will be honored with The Blues Foundation's 2009 Keeping the Blues
Alive (KBA) Award during a recognition brunch at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel Saturday, February 7, 2009 in Memphis Tennessee.
The KBA ceremony begins at 10:00 a.m. and will be held in conjunction with the 25th International Blues Challenge (IBC)
weekend of events that will feature the semifinals and finals of the world’s largest gathering of Blues bands,
as well as seminars, presentations, and receptions for Blues societies, fans and professionals.
The Keeping the Blues Alive Awards recognize the significant contributions to Blues music made by the people behind the
scenes. Each is selected on the basis of merit by a select panel of Blues professionals. KBA Chairman Art Tipaldi notes with
respect to this year’s recipients, “As is often the case, this year the committee recognized some
individuals that have long-deserved to be honored as well as identifying others who have made a very impressive mark on Blues
music in a relatively short period. Once again, the honorees cover the United States map. In addition, two Italian organizations
were selected for their commitment to the Blues genre in their country.
The 2009 Keeping the Blues Alive recipients are:
1. Agent: Steve Hecht, Piedmont Talent, Charlotte, NC
2. Art and Photography: Dusty & Val Scott, Dusty Blues, Pittsburgh, PA
3. Blues Club: B.L.U.E.S, Chicago, IL
4. Education: Monroe County Black History Month, Monroe County, MI
5. Festival: Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, Telluride, CO
6. Film, Television and Video: Willy Bearden, Memphis TN
7. Historical Preservation: Shack Up In, Clarksdale, MS
Tickets to the KBA ceremony are available online at
www.Blues.org. The IBC weekend, commencing
Wednesday, February 4, 2009, is sponsored in significant part by ArtsMemphis, bandVillage, Budweiser and its local distributor
D. Canale Beverages, FedEx, Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau, Smokin Bluz, Sonicbids,
Tennessee Arts Commission, Tennessee Film, Entertainment and Music Commission and XM Satellite Radio. Additional sponsors
include: Beale Street Merchants Association, Tommy Clifton Art, Doubletree Hotel, Gibson Guitars, Holiday Inn Select, Memphis
Grizzlies and the Residence Inn by Marriott.
Media Sponsors include Beale Street Caravan, Big City Rhythm and Blues, Blues Blast, Blues Festival Guide, Blues Revue,
BluesWax, Downtowner, House of Blues Radio Hour, Living Blues, Memphis Flyer, WREG-TV and XM Satellite Radio.
The Blues Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Blues history, celebrating Blues excellence,
supporting Blues education, and ensuring the future of this uniquely American art form. It is the umbrella organization for
a worldwide network of 165 affiliated Blues societies and has individual memberships around the globe. In addition to the
Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, The Blues Foundation produces the Blues Music Awards, the Blues Hall of Fame Induction, and
the International Blues Challenge. For more information on how to support The Blues Foundation check us out on the web at
Blues Blast Music Award Winners Announced At Buddy Guy’s Legends
The winners of the 2008 Blues Blast Music Awards were announced Sunday November 2nd, 2008 at a Gala Blues celebration
at Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago, IL.
The award winners are: Best Contemporary Blues Recording - Holmes
Brothers - State Of Grace Best Traditional Blues Recording - Lurrie Bell - Lets Talk About Love Best New Artist Debut
Recording - John Németh - Magic Touch Best Blues Song - Nick Moss - Mistakes from the Past Best Male Artist - Buddy
Guy Best Female Artist - Koko Taylor Best Blues Band - Magic Slim & The Teardrops Sean Costello Rising Star Award
- John Németh
Blues Blast Magazine also awarded their first ever Lifetime Achievement Award to Delta Blues Legend David
”Honeyboy” Edwards. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes significant contributions and a lifetime body of
work in the field of Blues music.
The ceremonies included performances by Magic Slim & the Teardrops, Lurrie Bell,
Matthew Skollar, Nick Moss, Gerry Hundt , John Németh, The Kilborn Alley Blues Band, Dave Riley, Bob Corritore, Eden
Brent, Sugar Ray Norcia, Teeny Tucker, Gina Sicilia, Dave Gross, Tim "Too Slim" Langford and others.
The winners were
chosen by the 11,000 Blues Blast magazine readers from all 50 states and more than 40 countries voting at the IllinoisBlues.com
website. There was no cost or fees to be eligible to vote. These awards truly represent the Peoples Choice for the best in
Blues music.
Celebrity award presenters included Eric Steiner, president of the Washington Blues Society, Linda Cain
Publisher of ChicagoBluesGuide.com, Chicago Blues woman Deb Seitz, August “Lordy” Lord, owner of ChicagoBluesBeat.com
, Blues Writer James “Skyy Dobro” Walker, Blues Songwriter, Musician, DJ and Journalist, Ben Cox, Matt Eimer,
Promoter of the Simply The Blues Fest in Fort Madison, Iowa and Kate Moss Publicity director for Blue Bella Records.
The sponsors of the Blues Blast Music Awards were WGL Blues 24/7 a FREE online Blues Music stream and Podcast
from WGLT radio, a public radio station in Normal, Illinois (www.WGLT.org) and The Chicago Blues Guide (www.ChicagoBluesGuide.com)
Blues
Blast magazine is a FREE weekly Blues “web-zine” available from IllinoisBlues.com. The Blues Blast Music Awards
recognize the best of today’s Blues music.
A group of Blues industry professionals including artists, music writers,
radio D.J.’s, artist managers and festival promoters selected five nominees in each of the eight categories. Voting
for the awards took place during July and August online at the IllinoisBlues.com website. More than 2000 votes were cast and
the awards ceremonies were a celebration of the artists and the music that represent the best in Blues music today
Reprint By Request
The Bastardization of Soul
by Jerry Boogie Mason
The BoogieReport
In order to understand the development of so called southern soul music you got to go
back to when African slaves were brought to America. The first statutory recognition of slavery occurred in Massachusetts
in 1641, in Connecticut in 1650 and Virginia in 1661, but these were mainly rules for dealing with runaways. By the
time the war of independence began (1775-1783) laws defining their legal, political and social status with regards to their
owners had become very specific. Te help them deal with the pain and humiliation of their condition slaves developed
a series of "work songs". as the slaves became converted to Christianity the slaves saw hope that someday they might
be free the 'work songs" evolved into what we will call spirituals which later became Gospel Music.
As the Civil War approached and the light of freedom seemed to be within view the spirituals took on a dual
purpose.some of them contained secret messages as to where meeting would be held along with other important information.The
songs were structured in a manner to insure the message was understood. The first message was always repeated 'example'
I'm gonna meet sweet Jesus early in DA morning down by DA river. I'm gonna meet sweet Jesus early in DA morning down by DA
river. "I'm gonna wash my soul and then Ill be free".These work songs or field Hollers were an effective means of communication.
Then Came The Blues After the Civil War the Spirituals evolved in to Gospel music celebrating
the Jubilee or the Glory Of God.On the secular side of the coin the message in the music changed to address everyday life
situations working conditions more and more this music eventually became known as The Blues. Just like the spirituals
the basic blues design was then and is even today a 12-bar form that is divided into three sections of four bars each or stanzas.
The second line of each stanza repeats the first, and the third line expresses a response to the first two. Many blues lyrics
reflect loneliness or sorrow, but others declare a humorous or defiant reaction to life's troubles.Over the years there has
been quite a bit of confusion as to what constitutes a Blues song. Originally any song that didnt mention Jesus was
considered Blues Music.The Blues became more widely known in the early 1900's. A bandleader named W. C. Handy began
to publish blues songs that won wide popularity. Handy's compositions include "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues"
(1914). In the 1920's, Bessie Smith emerged as one of the most talented and popular of the classic blues singers. Recordings
by Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ethel Waters, and others helped bring urban blues to a larger audience. In the 1930's, boogie-woogie,
a blues-influenced style of piano music, became popular.here we have another split the development of Dixieland and early
jazz we see the emergence of Big Band Music.the form of the music the instrumentation all changed some scored in 4 bar
8 bar 12 bar configuration the repeat the first stanza was also gone except in original blues which was still the preference
in the south.
Then Came The Great Migration
Just before, and during World War many blacks migrated from the agricultural south to the more industrial
Mid-Western, North-Eastern and West-Coast Cities. This population shift was caused by relatively high paying wartime
employment. It was this new urbanized demographic group which evolved a new style of secular music known as R&B.
a fast-paced blues hybrid style with an aggressive, driving beat emerged through recordings released by independent American
record companies. This music, which was aimed primarily at a black audience, was known as rhythm and blues. Roy Brown recorded
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” (1947), and Wynonie Harris recorded “All She Wants to Do Is Rock” (1949),
two rhythm and blues standards that helped shape rock ‘n’ roll. Big Joe Turner introduced the song “Shake,
Rattle and Roll” (1954), which became a standard among rock music performers. many record companies and radio people
Started using the term Rhythm and Blues .You had stations like WDIA in Memphis WERD in Atlanta Playing this music.
Since this music was not pure Blues and the term Race Music had become socially unacceptable The term Rhythm and Blues
was coined. Rhythm and Blues was the mainstream until the late fifties and early sixties saw DooWop being
added to the mix.The refinement of Rhythm and Blues and what a lot of radio people thought was stigma attached to the
term BLUES. The term Soul Music was coined and was popularized buy Sam and Dave's Soul Man on St ax records. The
term Soul was utilized to describe all Black music until the advent of the DISCO ERA Which brought about The FUNK Revolution
whish gave Birth to Rap and Now Hip Hop. all while the genre were exploding The basic genres Blues and Soul continued
to survive and maintain an audience which had shifted mainly to Europe and America' White population and college campuses
which is where its strength is today.Soul has survived and enjoys a re birth mainly in the Southern United States.Artist Like
OV Wright ,Little Milton ,Tyrone Davis, Denise Lasalle, Johnny Taylor,Otis Clay,Betty Wright,Bobby Rush,William Bell, Ernie
johnson and many others have kept the soul genre alive through the Disco, Funk Rap and Hip Hop eras.
Southern Soul is music that had gone to church, and remembered the lessons it had learned there.
It is a deep, truly heartfelt sound. Soul was what you got when Brother Ray Charles changed the lyrics to an old gospel
song he'd probably sung growing up in Florida and released it as "I Got A Woman" in 1954. Soul was James Brown and the Famous
Flames' "Please Please Please." It grew from the parentage of B.B. King and the Soul Stirrers, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama,
Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Hank Williams. It was nurtured on the streets of Memphis and Macon, Georgia, in the juke joints or
the clubs that made up the chitlin circuit, and grew up to be the sound of the south for a generation. And make no mistake,
soul, true soul, was southern.
What came out of the Motor City was often called soul,
cause Motown emerged in the Soul Music Era
But Listen To Birmingham Born Eddie Kendrick and Mississippi Born David Ruffin and you hear Southern
Soul .The term Soul was used to make the music more
Marketable to White audiences .
It was a catchy song, well performed, that vanished when the next catchy song came along a couple
of months later. It was product, skin deep. Soul, real soul, the kind that could only come from below the Mason-Dixon line,
was never so ephemeral - or so calculated. Maybe it was because, for African-Americans there, life had always been hard, and
music had been one of the few releases from an endless grind. So it had to hit home, it had to penetrate to the
core. So it went below the skin, past the veins are the arteries, all the way to the bones and the heart all the way to the
soul.
Soul never pretended to be anything other than basic music. It was always about the feel, not fancy arrangements
- if anything, less tended to be more. Get the groove, get in the pocket, keep it tight, and let the singer hit you right
where you lived. For a decade and a half, soul was a soundtrack of America, a music that went all over the world, but kept
its feet firmly planted in Southern soil. The labels - Sound Stage 7, Malaco, SSS, Fame, even the might Stax - might have
been small, often shoestring, operations, but what they put out made people sit up and listen. The studios at American, Stax,
and Muscle Shoals became revered names for their sound and the funky economy of their musicians.
Unlike its northern counterpart, Southern soul had space - what wasn't played was as important as each note
hit. For all its African-American associations, soul was essentially a music without color. Otis Redding was black, Solomon
Burke, Clarence Carter, Joe Simon, and a whole string of acts, but take a listen to Charlie Rich's demo for "Feel Like Going
Home," just him and his piano, or Eddie Hinton singing "Hard Luck Guy," Dan Penn on "I Hate You," or any Steve Cropper guitar
break (not to mention the Muscle Shoals band) and it's apparent that soul was color blind.
And the fact that it could cross racial boundaries is important. Most people think of the South in the Sixties
as a place where segregation lingered on, even after the Civil Rights movement. Maybe it did - but not in soul. Not when half
the house musicians at Stax, Fame, and Muscle Shoals were white, or when the writers and producers (like Chips Moman and Rick
Hall) were white guys, coaxing these deep, deep performances from the singers. Soul, to put it briefly, was feeling, the weight
of history and hurt put in a time and place and pressed on vinyl.
The Bastardization of Soul
Today if you don't live in the south its almost impossible to listen to true southern Soul music on the
radio. The reason being that the powers that be have decided not to market this genre. Even with organized opposition
Southern soul still survives. Part of the problem started in the early sixties when schools like Columbia School of Broadcasting
were turning out Disc jockeys like Fords off the assembly lines The young graduates mostly from the North were told to
go down south and apply for jobs at radio stations often times these young jocks would arrive in the south with no knowledge
of the culture of the people or the history of southern music.as time passed and with along with a little help from
the buddy system these young broadcasters slowly gained control of key radio stations and slowly but surely began to
relegate southern soul music to block programming and in most cases dropped southern soul from play list all together
less airplay means less sales Companies are not going to support a genre where they don't see any return. In spite of
this Southern soul and independent Soul labels continue to survive. They stopped using the term Rhythm and Blues
because of what they thought was the negative connotation of the term Blues ,Then They stopped using the term soul when Disco
was the flavor of the day.they started using the term URBAN RADIO to keep from saying Black Radio now its HIP HOP and
R&B. hundreds of station use the term But you can listen from now until the cows come home and you want hear any Blues
what does the B in R&B stand for ?When you question Today's programming gurus they will tell you that their audiences
are too sophisticated for Southern Soul Music .
TRUE STORY
It was the early 70's a young DJ went from Little Rock Arkansas to Memphis became very popular and was offered
a job at WUST in Washington DC. When he got there and saw his play list there was nothing on the list but Doo Wop and Motown
. He went out in his car" you could do that in those days' and got his personal collection he brought some Johnny Taylor,
Joe Tex,Otis Redding O.V Wright and a few others and began to skillfully mix Southern Soul Music into the mix his pick was
Rock Me Baby a straight up 12 bar blues by BB King, and of course you know the phones went crazy.of course one of the calls
was from his GM who advised him that the audience was Too sophisticated for such music.next day our young DJ did the same
thang this time giving out the GM's home number and station number at each break advising the listeners to call and tell the
GM if they liked what he was doing. When he got off the air the hotline rang and he was summoned to the corporate headquarters
, he just knew he was gonna be fired,but upon his arrival he was surprised to find the four blocks around the headquarters
were grid locked with listeners and well wisher who had showed up to voice their support for our young DJ and Southern
soul Music as he fought his way through the crowd he was greeted by the GM like a hero returning home with a great victory.
As for as commercialism is concerned Swartz Bros The big record distributors ordered 26000 copies of Rock Me Baby after only
two days of airplay.That young DJ went on to make musical history His name. AL BELL now you know the rest of the
story.
Today we have a new crop of Soul Singers that carry on a proud tradition of music that reflects the lifestyle
of a people.Not selling dope or pimping hos .Not shooting up somebodys home.
Sir Charles Jones is of these new school Southern Soul
artist who signs about love life family relationships.
Omar Cunningham address economics with his hit living Check to Check.
Vick Allen one of the most talented artist and producers
addresses problem solving with his hits Id better walk away. and clean house.
TK Soul an electrifying talent with an outstanding live show one of the hardest working artist on the circuit
today.
Southern Soul boast a new crop of talented female artist
Lakiesha Burks. Ms. Monique, Sheba Potts Wright.
plus there are many many talented undiscovered young
talent waiting in the the wings wwaiting for their chance to contribute to the continuing story of southern
soul music.
Sir Charles Jones,Mel Waiters, WillieClayton,Marvin Sease,Shirley Brown,Denise Lasalle, Roy C. Solomon Burke
,Clarence Carter,Theodis Ealey and Stan Mosley are Southern Souls New Royalty .
Its a shame Its a disgrace that an art form with such an
outstanding history is relegated to little to no radio play
even in Southern Markets. Atlanta Georgia Shame On You. Birmingham Alabama Shame On You, Baton Rouge Louisianna
Shame On You. Miami Florida Shame On You. Nashville Tennessee Shame On You.
As always, Beale Street Caravan will be broadcasting portions of the 2008 Blues Music Awards.
The first segments will air the weeks of October 29, November 12 and November 19. Beale Street Caravan could possibly be airing
more Blues Music Award highlights this season. The schedule is posted online here Beale Street Caravan,® the most widely distributed Blues radio program in the world, attracts more than 2.4
million listeners each week. Produced in The Home of the Blues - Memphis, Tennessee - Beale Street... <more>
A new museum honouring BB King has just opened in Mississippi
Various signs are pinned haphazardly to a shack of unpainted cypress wood, topped with a roof of galvanised,
corrugated steel. One of them says the dress code should not be "like this", pointing to a picture of a man wearing a back-to-front
cap. Another one lists a number of other rules for those who enter. These include "No dope smoking", "no beer", and a defiant,
"no rap music".
This seems fair enough. There is no room for the latest fashions here at Po' Monkey's. This blues bar in the
heart of the Mississippi Delta is widely considered to be one of the last surviving rural "jook joints", or the drinking dens
that existed before the emancipation of slaves in the United States. ...<more>
Over the past few years, the Mobile Street Renaissance Festival has brought much needed attention to Hattiesburg's
historic Mobile Street community. This year, the community will be known not only as the home to the festival but also a home
of the blues.
At 8:30 a.m. Oct. 18, a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker will be unveiled at 610 Mobile St., a kick-off for
the day's events. The markers, which are located across the state, are a part of the Mississippi Blues Commission, a group
designed to educate the country on blues music and its culture. Each marker is themed toward that area's contribution to the
genre; Hattiesburg's marker will be named "Hattiesburg Recording Studios."
Remember Otis Redding, David Ruffin, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, and Wilson Pickett?? Remember when it was straight
from the soul with a lot of love? It's back with a new twist!!!
Jayibee, out of the south from Tuscaloosa, Al, has developed this new sound and genre called Southern R&B. The
developing genre has a positive combination of soul, gospel, r&b, and country mix all in one, giving a lasting sensation
for music that will last forever. Jayibee's smooth and sensual vocals captures deep emotions while listening to his soulful
sounds<more>
Boogie Radio2008The Best Southern Soul Rhythm and Blues Mix On The PlanetBoogie JamsBoogieThe Best Southern Soul Rhythm and Blues Mix On The Planet
