15 Years of Blues

The Cascade Blues Association Celebrates 15 Years of Supporting, Promoting & Preserving Blues and Blues-Related Music

A look back... by Rose Allen

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Regional Press

A July 1994 issue of Sunset magazine revealed information worth repeating: "Portland is home to one of the most vibrant Blues scenes and probably the largest Blues festival in the West. Some of Portland's Blues trailblazers are still club fixtures." Economic reality helped draw more artists. "You can make a living as a musician in Portland," Margo Tufo was quoted as saying. Jim Mesi added: "...there are enough Blues-focused clubs to provide musicians with a lot of work. You're lucky to work weekends in other towns." Author Christianne Selig continues, "Bottom line, Portlanders love the Blues. Local Blues clubs and bands are heavily backed while national acts of a different musical ilk have trouble filling the big halls." In reference to the Waterfront Blues Festival: "The festival, now in its fourth year, draws more than 75,000 people to Tom McCall Waterfront Park for the best in local and national Blues entertainment on two stages." Readers were encouraged to check out the local scene: Curtis Salgado and the Stillettos, Linda Hornbuckle and the No Delay Band, The Lloyd Jones Struggle, Janice Scroggins, Jim Mesi, The Margo Tufo Band, and Norman Sylvester.

This list provides further emphasis to the fact that those "trailblazers" are indeed still "club fixtures." A photo of Margo belting it out at the Candlelight accompanied the article.

Muddy Awards

The Muddy Awards were the brainstorm of Dave Clingan, who made the original Muddy Award by hand. The first ceremony was held in 1989 at Erickson's Saloon. Tickets to the second Muddy Awards were $7 and included dinner. Terry Currier told me there was "relentless media promotion" which created popularity of the event and the need for larger venues. Many artists attended, and the Muddys found their current home in the upper Melody Ballroom. The "Back What You Believe In" Award was established early on to recognize those individuals who exhibited exceptional dedication to the CBA. Those who have received this prestigious award include: Bill Rhoades, Terry Currier, Norman Sylvester, Bobby & Errol Shervey, Shelley Garrett, Rick Hall, Val Davis, Susan Stewart, Ken Johnson, Greg Johnson, and this past year, LynnAnn Hyde.

Bob Ancheta

Alex Sierra especially enjoyed the early Muddy Awards ceremonies. "It was the Event of the Year, a time to pull the best duds from the closet. It was a lot of fun," he said. Alex would like to see the Muddy Awards brought back to what they used to be. A BluesNotes issue from December 1991 reads: "Muddies Sell Out at Melody Ballroom." The Master of Ceremonies at this Third Annual event was current KINK DJ Les Sarnoff. Over the years, Bob Ancheta of KINK's Sunday Night Blues Show fame has presented the Muddy Awards. We are grateful to Bob, who has also taken time to serve the CBA in many other capacities over the years.

Music Lending Library

A number of those with whom I spoke made mention of the CBA musical archives, also created by Dave Clingan. Delving into stacks of small drawers to discover hundreds of tapes all neatly labeled, carefully alphabetized and categorized, I sample a tape of Blind Lemon Jefferson. His haunting sound fills the background as I write. An "Archive Bible" provides a lengthy list, indicating the obvious amounts of time spent meticulously archiving this information. The following "Vision Statement" describes this resource: "The CBA would like to encourage members and nonmembers alike to take advantage of the Music Lending Library. The lending library has literally hundreds of titles on cassette tapes that can be borrowed at the monthly meeting and kept and enjoyed until the next meeting. The music library is maintained by the CBA to allow access to artists and styles of Blues music not readily available to the average listener. Its purpose is to educate, as well as entertain. And, though these tapes are not to be reproduced, the CBA encourages anyone who loves the Blues to preview this vast catalog of music for their edification and enjoyment."

Tapes were selected from a catalog at the monthly meetings, a request form was completed and a small fee was paid ($1 for members, $3 for non-members). There was also a $5 refundable deposit and fines paid for not returning within the one-month lending period. There were 1317 albums on a dusty printed list as of June 5, 1991. This was a real advantage to the membership at the time and brought more people to meetings because that is where the lending of tapes took place. For a time, Jay Johnson was in charge of this facet of the CBA. Johnson was mentioned as "Audio Archives Coordinator" early on, as was Brad Hollis. Note: ultimately the CBA had to forgo this practice of copying tapes for lending purposes so as NOT to infringe upon copyright laws.

10^th Anniversary

The headline of the February 1997 BluesNotes issue featured the 10^th Anniversary of the CBA by announcing: "It's A Party!" The event was held February 16^th at the Roseland Theater and featured: Little Charlie & The Nightcats, The Lloyd Jones Struggle, The Duffy Bishop Band, and The Paul deLay Trio. Ticket prices of $12 in advance and $15 the day of show netted the organization over $7,000.

www.cascadeblues.org

The CBA Web site consists of about 1500 files in 100 different folders and takes up roughly 25 megabytes of server space. About 900 of those files are images. There are 4,633 hyperlinks scattered through the site. The site averages about 18,000 visitors per month, over 800 unique visitors per day. The online calendar is the most often utilized page. Thanks to technology, Artist Profiles and Blues in History articles are archived on the site. Nearly all of the site content comes from the BluesNotes. A great deal of thanks to Mr. Steve Nassar for serving as webmaster for three years. He has established the policy: "Just say NO! to Commercialism on our site." Steve has been a Supporting Member for eight years and also served on the Board of Directors. Steve retired from his webmaster duties this spring and a search was made for a replacement. We welcome Patrick McDougall, who serves as our current webmaster. (Send him a note if you want!)

15^th Anniversary

The Viscount Ballroom —
Location of the 15th Anniversary Celebration

The 15^th Anniversary Committee has decided that this celebration should focus on hometown talent, rather than bringing in a big headliner. Our desire is to have as many local artists on stage as possible and financially feasible. It is hoped that those local musicians who will not be performing on stage will accept the invitation to be a part of this important event, just as they are a very integral part of the Blues scene here in town. It is just not possible to get everyone up on stage in a single evening.

We realize these are tough times financially for a lot of folks. The reasonable prices of $8 for members, $10 for non-members should allow as many as possible to attend. There will be a display of CBA artifacts, photos and posters accumulated over the past 15 years. If you have something to contribute, bring it along. There will be public recognition of those who have been integral to this Association and we would love to have as many of you attend as possible. If you feel there is anyone who has been excluded and deserving of recognition, feel free to write up a profile on that person for a future BluesNotes edition; or drop me a line and I will see what I can do.

Reviewing meeting minutes, old BluesNotes issues, posters and hundreds of photographs has been a real CBA history lesson for me. A fine visual sampling will be displayed during our Celebration at the Viscount. Being somewhat new to the Blues scene in Portland, it was interesting to discover the various configurations of artists who have performed together over the years.

It is said we have more Blues bands per capita than anywhere and I believe it. The difficulty is in finding fans to get out there and enjoy the scene. I have had numerous discussions on this topic and it seems to be a recurring theme. Why don't more people get out? Where are all the CBA members? Tough questions to answer. Many members have been supporting and listening to the local acts for years and no longer step out with as much frequency. We are dependent upon the excitement, enthusiasm and energy of new members, similar to the ones who originally formed this Association, in order to keep the Blues alive and moving in a forward direction. See y'all there!

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