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The purpose for
the Greenwood
Lake Blues
Festival is
twofold: - to introduce people to blues music - to raise funds and distribute to families east of Mt. Peter with cancer for every day necessities A little information about the blues: The Crossroads From the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, and the platform of the Clarksdale Railway Station, the blues headed north to Beale Street in Memphis. The blues have strongly influenced almost all popular music including jazz, country, and rock and roll and continues to help shape music worldwide. The Blues... its 12-bar, bent-note melody is the anthem of a race, bonding itself together with cries of shared self victimization. Bad luck and trouble are always present in the Blues, and always the result of others, pressing upon unfortunate and down trodden poor souls, yearning to be free from life's' troubles. Relentless rhythms repeat the chants of sorrow, and the pity of a lost soul many times over. This is the Blues.
The blues form was first popularized about 1911-14 by the black composer W.C. Handy (1873-1958). However, the poetic and musical form of the blues first crystallized around 1910 and gained popularity through the publication of Handy's "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Instrumental blues had been recorded as early as 1913. During the twenties, the blues became a national craze. Mamie Smith recorded the first vocal blues song, 'Crazy Blues' in 1920. The Blues influence on jazz brought it into the mainstream and made possible the records of blues singers like Bessie Smith and later, in the thirties, Billie Holiday The Blues are the essence of the African American laborer, whose spirit is wed to these songs, reflecting his inner soul to all who will listen. Rhythm and Blues is the cornerstone of all forms of African American music.
In northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, during the later forties and early fifties, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James (pictured to the left) among others, played what was basically Mississippi Delta blues, backed by bass, drums, piano and occasionally harmonica, and began scoring national hits with blues songs. At about the same time, T-Bone Walker in Houston and B.B. King in Memphis were pioneering a style of guitar playing that combined jazz technique with the blues tonality and repertoire.
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (pictured below), Wyonnie Harris, and Big Mama Thorton wrote and performed the songs that would make a young Elvis Presley world renown. In the early nineteen-sixties, the urban bluesmen were "discovered" by young white American and European musicians. Many of these blues-based bands like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Canned Heat, and Fleetwood Mac, brought the blues to young white audiences, something the black blues artists had been unable to do in America except through the purloined white cross-over covers of black rhythm and blues songs. Since the sixties, rock has undergone several blues revivals. Some rock guitarists, such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, and Eddie Van Halen have used the blues as a foundation for offshoot styles. While the originators like John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins and B.B. King--and their heirs Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and later Eric Clapton and the late Roy Buchanan, among many others, continued to make fantastic music in the blues tradition. The latest generation of blues players like Robert Cray and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, among others, as well as gracing the blues tradition with their incredible technicality, has drawn a new generation listeners to the blues.
A personal perspective: I believe blues music is the heart of American music, without this music I do not know where we would be today. Warwick has a jazz festival this summer with great success as well as the Village of Greenwood Lake summer concerts. Would the events have happened without the blues? Every facet of music today owes its life to the blues. Music can be very therapeutic. The Blues can help many people forget their ailments for a short time. The one note BB King or Stevie Ray Vaughn hits or the tone of their instrument is all one needs to be taken to a euphoric level and make us forget our troubles. We have all known someone with cancer and have seen what effects this has on friends and family. Everyone needs help from the caregiver to the ailing person. Would it not be nice to put a smile on someone’s face for a few hours listening to great music? I would like your help to produce the first Greenwood Lake Blues Festival next fall. Distribute all proceeds raised from The Greenwood Lake Blues Festival for the purpose of helping those with cancer and their families for every day necessities. For the reasons mentioned above is why I would like your participation in the Greenwood Lake Blues Festival.
Scott Pender Founder (Organizer) of the Greenwood Lake Blues Festival scott@greenwoodlakebluesfestival.com info@greenwoodlakebluesfestival.com Brought to you by Greenwood Lake Taxi |
