I would like to point out that some of the most popular essays in previous January issues of our ezine have been my semi-annual commentaries on the Memphis, Tennessee, based Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Award nominees. As always the nominees were announced in December.

The light hearted, good natured fun I have at the expense of this organization and their mostly heretofore relentless exhibition of bad taste is conspicuously absent from this issue. Why, you may ask? I’ll tell you. It would appear that the secret nominators decided that they actually like blues music. I applaud these individuals, whoever you are. It isn’t easy for a horse to change course in mid-stream or a zebra to change stripes any more than it is to come up with a third really lame equine cliché. If this is an anomaly or an honest to goodness trend, only time will tell. I hope it is the latter. If that is the case, it is long overdue. 

I promise you that I had no direct involvement in this coup d'état. Sure, many of this year’s nominees have been the subjects of features of recent interviews here at BLUES JUNCTION. Others are long time friends of the JUNCTION and who are the subject of essays which appear in the archive section of this site. However, I remain unaffiliated with this or any other blues group, society or organization. So I am not in any way being self congratulatory or trying to earn a merit badge with membership when I say, kudos to the Blues Foundation for taking a step in the right direction.

Of course it is an exercise in stating the obvious when I remind you that the Blues Foundation came into existence at the start of the largest and most lucrative, as well as creative, renaissance in the long history of this music. They hitched their wagon to this trend. Since then, the organization has prospered while blues music floundered both artistically and then of course commercially. Their motto is that stupid, parrot like mantra, ‘Keepin’ the Blues Alive.’ Implying that they are operating as some kind of medical professional, the Blues Foundation continues to oversee their patient (the blues) which remains in a perpetual state of life support. Of course if the blues ever fully recovered who would need this non-profit? 

On their watch, this beloved and exhilarating music sunk to the lowest point anytime in its history. It would appear to even the casual observer that the Blues Foundation’s definition of ‘Keepin’ the Blues Alive’ is to redefine the music out of existence.

I have always contended that if any and all the money, time and effort that is siphoned off to the Blues Foundation went directly to helping the musicians who are worthy of our support, the music known as the blues would no longer be something that needed to be kept alive. It would be up dancing to the swinging, sometimes jazzy, soulful sounds of the music that was once a ubiquitous part of the original Beale Street in Memphis.

In the early seventies, in the name of what used to be called urban renewal and what we now call regentrification, the African-American Mecca of culture in the Mid-South was literally bulldozed. I watched with my own eyes as wrecking balls smashed into the heart and soul of Memphis’ black community. Beale Street was turned into a tourist trap which caters to middle aged, white people who come to party at these Blues Foundation shindigs. These folks, who like their history and blues music whitewashed to suit their own sensibilities, spend a lot of money and that, at the end of the day, is what the Blues Music Awards are all about. Maybe they should call the entire affair The Memphis Chamber of Commerce Awards.

Since you can’t, and perhaps wouldn’t want to, put the BBQ sauce back in the bottle, I am happy to acknowledge the big step forward that the Blues Foundation took with this year’s nominees. To what degree, if any this has to do with the new incoming president, Barbara B. Newman, I truly don’t know. I do however wish her and the Blues Foundation all the success this world has to offer.

So book your hotel rooms, make reservations and spend your hard earned money in Memphis this May at the 2016 Blues Music Awards. If the nominees can afford to get to Memphis, you might hear the real deal, the genuine article and some of the best music to grace the big stage at the Blues Music Awards.

On the other hand, it would be hard to argue that if one moved the Blues Music Awards to different cities, which share in the long rich history of this music, it would help to expose the blues to more people. It would be like the new College Football National Championship, which does a six city rotation. Each city can celebrate its own contributions to this music, which in many cases are overlooked by the historical revisionists. The benefits to this plan are so numerous, and quite frankly obvious, they needn’t be expounded upon here.

My suggestions for the “big six” are as follows:  1) New Orleans 2) Chicago 3) Houston 4) Kansas City 5) Los Angeles and just so you know we didn’t forget about you...6) Memphis. Remember I’m just here to help. Of course by the time they got back around to Memphis and their “Disneyfied” version of Beale Street, the town will be on life support, but at least the blues might be a bit healthier, which we have been led to believe is the point of all this in the first place.

At least that’s what I think. Your thoughts on any and all of this are not only welcome but encouraged.

-  David Mac



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