JAM: April/May 2003 Issue: Blues News

Stan Koron

The "Year of the Blues" Continues
As most everyone knows, the 12th annual Mardi Gras Club Crawl on March 4th got hit with a heavy punch of winter. The temperature dropped 25 degrees during the afternoon and the rain turned to ice. We knew by 5 p.m. that we were in trouble. In spite of the horrible weather conditions, every club was a party with live music and all of the busses ran throughout the night. I would like to thank the many volunteers who braved the weather to help us, and I especially want to thank the people who got out and joined us on the club crawl. Unfortunately, we didn't make even half as much money as we expected to. We do have other fundraisers scheduled throughout the year, but the club crawl has traditionally been our biggest fundraising event. We are working on plans for a couple of new events to attempt to make up for the money we didn't make on the club crawl.

Now we have the challenge of keeping everything going with a smaller budget than we would have preferred. Our newsletter will continue to come out every month and our "Blues in the Schools" program will continue to help students learn about the blues with music lessons, workshops and performances by blues artists. Let's take a quick look at some of the other events that we will participate in this year.

We will continue to hold our general membership meetings at the Grand Emporium on the second Thursday of each month. The meetings are followed by a free jam session featuring some of the best musicians in Kansas City. The summer festivals get going in June and we will be selling merchandise at the Parkville and Gladstone blues festivals as well as helping to sponsor the KCK Street Blues Festival to be held on June 28.

In July we will be at the Spirit Festival to be held July 3-5. On July 6 we will begin our Blue Sunday Concerts in Washington Square Park just north of Crown Center. These concerts are free to the public and will run for six Sundays through August 10 featuring local and national talent. The KCBS produces these Sunday concerts in partnership with the fine people at KC Parks & Recreation. September 5-6 we will be at the 2nd Annual Blues & Heritage Festival to be held on the north side of the Liberty Memorial. The following week, on September 13, we will hold our 6th Annual Acoustic Blues Showcase. Last year's event was one of the highlights of the year!

In October we will be holding the annual Blues Challenge competition on consecutive Wednesday nights from the 8th to the 29th with the finals of the competition on November 5. We are considering the possibility of starting a Kansas City Blues Hall of Fame to give much deserved recognition to our local blues musicians and supporters. I welcome your input as we develop the hall of fame concept. I want to thank all of our volunteers and supporters for helping us in this "Year of the Blues."