The Pacific Northwest Blues Societies have developed a strong tradition of sending some of the finest acts to Memphis each year to take part in the International Blues Challenge. Though this is a competition being held in Memphis, the competitors are all supportive of one another, cheering for one another at the IBC as well as helping each other out to help raise the needed funds for everybody to be able to get to Tennessee beforehand.

This year, five Northwest Blues Societies will be sending a total of nine acts and one youth band. Two huge fundraising events have been scheduled in December, featuring several of these winning acts at both.

The first will be held in Portland at Duff’s Garage on Friday, December 12th, starting at 7:30 pm. This show will feature the Cascade Blues Association’s representatives The Rae Gordon Band and David Pinsky & Phil Newton, Washington Blues Society’s solo entry Nick Vigarino, South Sound Blues Association’s CD Woodbury Band, Rainy Day Blues Society’s Randy Oxford Band and Walker T. Ryan, and the Ashland Blues Society’s solo/duo entry Ben Rice & Lucy Hammond. Admission to this event is $15.00 and a silent auction and raffle will also be held to raise extra funds. Duff’s Garage is located at 2530 NE 82nd.

Then on Sunday, December 14th, Highway 99 Blues Club in Seattle, 1414 Alaskan Way, will host another IBC fundraiser featuring many of these same acts, with the Washington Blues Society’s band winners The Rafael Tranquilino Band and Ashland Blues Society’s Tracey Fordice & The 8 Balls joining in.

Please support all of the Northwest IBC acts as they continue to raise the money to cover their travel, hotel and meal expenses to get back to Memphis. These two events are a great way to help out.

In mid-October a group of Board Members gathered at the Cascade Blues Association office to listen to the eight CDs submitted to us forLisaMann-MoveOn-Cover1-275x246 consideration of being selected as our entry in The Blues Foundation’s Best Self-Produced CD competition. Each of the discs were judged on the same categories that they will be scored on by committees in Memphis: blues content, talent – instrumentation & vocals, sound quality, liner notes and art work. The eight entries we received were: Ashbolt Stewart – Beats Workin’, David Pinsky & Phil Newton – Over The Moon, Gabriel Cox –Gabriel Cox, Lisa Mann – Move On, McFadden Planet – Stories, Robbie Laws – Between The Lines, Tess Barr – Do What You Want, Tommy Hogan – Howl Like The Wind. The scoring was very close, but in the end the committee selected Lisa Mann’s – Move On. Copies of Lisa’s disc were sent to Memphis where it will face a series of up to three panels of judging to potentially reach the final five discs, with the overall winning CD being announced at the finals of the International Blues Challenge in The Orpheum Theatre on January 24th.

Two of the Pacific Northwest’s most powerful blues beltin’ ladies will both be appearing on the same show at Duff’s Garage on Saturday, November 8th. Seattle’s Stacy Jones, the winner of the Washington Blues Society Best of the Blues (BB) Award in 2014 for Female Vocalist teams up with the Cascade Blues Association 2013 Duffy Bishop Female Vocalist of the Year recipient Rae Gordon (and Rae is nominated again this year). Both front extraordinarily strong bands and are sure to ignite the stage with some fiery, jump out of your seat and hit the dance floor blues.

Stacy Jones does not make it down to the Portland area too often and her music has lately taken on a blend of country, folk and Americana alongside her soulful blues. A multi-talented artist, she plays guitar, harmonica, writes her own music and has four albums to her credit.

Rae Gordon needs no introduction to the music fans in Portland. A multi-winner of the Muddy Awards, she is also this year’s winning band in the CBA’s Journey to Memphis competition and will be heading to Memphis to participate in the International Blues Challenge this January. Every show between now and then will help raise funds to get the band to Tennessee and see that they’re fed well, too.

Duff’s Garage is located at 2530 NE 82nd and this show will have a 9:00 pm start time. Admission is only $10.00, a real steal for two great acts. Plus, you can receive a $1.00 discount by showing your membership card at the door for this CBA co-sponsored event.

Last June, Southern Oregon blues duo David Pinsky & Phil Newton won the right to represent the Cascade Blues Association in Memphis this coming January at the International Blues Challenge by taking the top scores in the Journey To Memphis competition in the solo/duo category. This will be their second trip to the IBC as they performed their last year as the representatives for Eugene’s Rainy Day Blues Society. Always a fun time on stage, the two are sensational story tellers and first-class musicians working in a guitar-harmonica format. Recently the pair have put together their very first recording together titled Over The Moon that brings their effervescent stage act onto disc.

David Pinsky & Phil Newton will be traveling to the Portland area with the dual purpose of celebrating their new CD, while trying to raise funds to help offset their traveling expenses to Memphis. The show will take place at The Lehrer, 8775 SW Canyon Lane in Beaverton, on Thursday, November 6th for an early 7:00 – 10:00 pm performance. Admission is $10.00. Come on out and help David and Phil get back to Memphis and pick up a copy of this excellent CD as well. The two have a lot of fun onstage and it rubs off onto the audience just as much. Don’t miss it.

This past July, the Rae Gordon Band won the Cascade Blues Association’s Journey To Memphis competition at the Waterfront Blues Festival, earning the rights to represent the region at The Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in Tennessee this coming January. Though the band did receive prize money to help them defray the expense of traveling to Memphis, they still need to raise more in order to take part in this competition happening on historic Beale Street over five days.

On Saturday, October 4th, you have the chance to help the band raise these funds, enjoying an afternoon of great blues music while cruising the Willamette River on The Portland Spirit. Every level of The Spirit will have live bands, featuring the Rae Gordon Band and past Journey To Memphis winners Lisa Mann and Franco & The Stingers, plus additional surprise guest appearances. If you have ever been onboard one of the blues cruises during the Waterfront Blues Festival, you already know that this is going to be a fun time.

The Cascade Blues Cruise will board from Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland at 3:00 pm. Tickets are $25.00 and food and drink will be available for purchase on the boat. All ticket proceeds from this incredible afternoon of music and cruising on the Willamette will go toward sending the Rae Gordon Band to Memphis, providing airfare, lodging and meals for all of the band members.

To get tickets for the Cascade Blues Cruise and learn more about this incredible event that the Cascade Blues Association supports, please go to: www.raegordon.com/ibc. But hurry, because tickets are going fast!

Help the Rae Gordon Band sail on to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in January 2015!

Rae Gordon - photo by Tony Kutter (use this shot with the J2M article)This past July, the Rae Gordon Band won the Cascade Blues Association’s Journey To Memphis competition at the Waterfront Blues Festival, earning the rights to represent the region at The Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in Tennessee this coming January. Though the band did receive prize money to help them defray the expense of travelling to Memphis, they still need to raise more in order to take part in this competition happening on historic Beale Street over five days.

On Saturday, October 4th, you have the chance to help the band raise these funds, enjoying an afternoon of great blues music while cruising the Willamette River on The Portland Spirit. Every level of The Spirit will have live bands, featuring the Rae Gordon Band and past Journey To Memphis winners Lisa Mann and Franco & The Stingers, plus additional surprise guest appearances. If you have ever been onboard one of the blues cruises during the Waterfront Blues Festival, you already know that this is going to be a fun time.

The Cascade Blues Cruise will board from Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland at 3:00 pm. Tickets are $25.00 and food and drink will be available for purchase on the boat. All ticket proceeds from this incredible afternoon of music and cruising on the Willamette will go toward sending the Rae Gordon Band to Memphis, providing airfare, lodging and meals for all of the band members.

To get tickets for the Cascade Blues Cruise and learn more about this incredible event that the Cascade Blues Association supports, please go to: www.raegordon.com/ibc

Help the Rae Gordon Band sail on to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in January 2015!

If you would like to have your CD considered by the Cascade Blues Association for submission in The Blues Foundation’s Best Self Produced CD competition, please send your disc to BSPCD c/o Cascade Blues Association, PO Box 14493, Portland, Oregon 97293. You may also turn your submission in at the August, September or October Cascade Blues Association General Membership Meetings. No discs will be accepted later than October 1st.

All discs submitted must have been released after November 1, 2013. A committee set up by the Cascade Blues Association’s Board of Directors will listen to each submission and like the Journey To Memphis will rate each on a series of categories (blues content, instrumentation, vocals, art work and liner notes). Entries are only accepted by acts within the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Idaho and Washington). We must receive your entry no later than October 1st. Please note, the entry that we submit to The Blues Foundation will require that we send them four copies of the disc for their judges. We will notify the appropriate act for the extra copies needed to send.

The Cascade Blues Association held the finals for the 15th annual Journey To Memphis competition on July 4th at the Waterfront Blues Festival. Four finalists selected by our judges scoring at the first round held at The Lehrer in early June, faced off against one another in the hot summer afternoon before three new judges. This year’s overall competition was without doubt one of the strongest fields ever, top to bottom. Covering a wide diversity of blues styles, twelve acts started out and four remained at the Festival.

David Pinsky and Phil Newton (use this shot with J2M article) - photo by Greg Johnson

David Pinsky & Phil Newton – photo by Greg Johnson

One of the three was a solo/duo act, David Pinsky & Phil Newton. They had already earned the right to travel to Memphis to represent the CBA at The Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in January. We still had to decide on a band amongst the three remaining acts. Why were David and Phil involved then? They were competing for the overall prize money to help them get to Memphis. If they scored higher than the bands they would be awarded the grand prize.

The other three acts included two bands that made it to Memphis in 2014 for the IBC, Rae Gordon who made the semi-finals back East representing the Rainy Day Blues Society of Eugene, and Ben Rice & The iLLamatics who went for the CBA and made it all the way to the finals. The newcomers were Salem’s Still Water Vibes, a fiery new band with sensational vocals from Nick Wixom. All three acts, along with David and Phil, turned in knock-out performances, all worthy of taking home the prize.

But it was all up to the scoring of the judges. And we had three of the best judges you could ask for, all on the same level as those judges used in Memphis at the IBC finals themselves. Music writer and editor Stacy Jeffress from Topeka, Kansas; Delta Groove recording artist from Australia Kara Grainger; and Delta Groove artist and past IBC second place winner Sugaray Rayford. Each scored the competitors on five categories: blues content, originality, vocals, instrumentation and overall stage presence.

Rae Gordon - photo by Tony Kutter (use this shot with the J2M article)

Rae Gordon – photo by Tony Kutter

A tough call to make, but in the end it was the Rae Gordon Band coming out on top. Aside from the prize money and the right to represent the CBA in Memphis this coming January, the band will also open the Muddy Awards show this coming November and will have a guaranteed paid set at next year’s Waterfront Blues Festival.

Congratulations and good luck!

 

Waterfront Blues Festival site of Independence Day showdown
By Rob Cullivan

Whether it was a harmonica-blowing, guitar-strumming duo on stage or a funky danceable good time band, all types of performers made the first round of the Cascade Blues Association’s Journey to Memphis contest an aural feast for listener’s ears.

Dozens of Blues fans came down to The Lehrer, 8775 S.W. Canyon Lane, Beaverton, June 6-7 to hear two nights worth of music from a variety of bands and acts. Crowds enjoyed everything from soulful slide guitar runs to jumpin’ jams.

As CBA President Greg Johnson put it, “We’ve got a real eclectic group of musicians here this year — the blues can take all kinds of avenues.”

The first round’s four winners included repeats Ben Rice & The iLLamatics (who went to Memphis earlier this year as the CBA’s band rep), the Rae Gordon Band  and David Pinsky & Phil Newton, both of whom who represented Eugene’s Rainy Day Blues Society in Memphis this past January, and newcomers Still Water Vibes.  All four acts will strut their stuff at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland Friday, July 4, with the highest scoring act amongst the three bands going on to Memphis, Tenn., next January for the International Blues Challenge.

Pinsky says he and Newton are thrilled to have been selected for the July 4 finals. Pinsky & Newton are already guaranteed a trip to Memphis as the only solo/duo act to make the finals.

“The title of our next album is called ‘Over the Moon,'” and I am over the moon,” he said. “I’m really honored. Another bucket listing I get to cross off my list.”

At The Lehrer, the acts competed before judges Alan Spinrad, Brendan O’Donnell and Tim Shaughnessy. Each act played a 20-minute set and were scored in five categories — blues content, vocals, instrumentation, originality and stage presence.

TGIF
The first night at The Lehrer, a packed and chatty house sampled the Pat Stillwell Band, a blues-rock trio with an easygoing vibe and competent, clean arrangements. Folks seemed to dig the group, which drew a nice round of applause at the end of its set, which would likely appeal to fans of Buddy Guy and Robert Cray.

Next up were Ben Rice and the iLLamatics, who came on as strong like moonshine splashed on the face of a sleeping hobo in a boxcar. Rice and company roused the crowd with an over-the-top performance that featured drummer Ryan Rustrum banging his sticks not just on the skins, but a table, the floor and bassist Cahlen Uhlig’s strings. It was clear the moment the iLLamatics left the stage to a loud ovation they were one act to beat.

Fans of the Black Keys and White Stripes would probably enjoy the night’s third act, Land of the Living, a guitar-drums duo that specializes in “voodoo-mud” to quote axeman Kivett Bednar. Along with drummer Anthony Pausic, Bednar proved himself to have a touch of Gregg Allman in his vocal soul, and John Lee Hooker in his music.

Act No. 4 Anne Weiss boasted a lovely just-shy-of-Janis-Joplin type voice and is well known in these parts as a multi-genre folk artist, and drew warm applause for her efforts.

Then the night’s other winner, the Rae Gordon Band, took the stage. The dance floor got packed and at times it felt like everyone was in an old school burlesque club as the group sweated out sexy, slinky music, funky soul and country blues.

Every act got a run for its money, however, when jump blues cats Papa Dynamite & The Jive took the stage — zowie! Serving up blues music with a bit of mambo and chased down with a shot of tonal tequila, this outfit was the perfect act to end the evening, putting the “un” into fun and leaving dancers and listeners with smiles on their faces. Singer Jen Tyler, a relative newcomer to the scene, brought great earth-shakin’ energy to the stage while saxophonist “Butcher” Pete Galluzo served up thick slabs of beefy blues lines.

Saturday shuffle
Martin Henry & The Blues Benders kicked off the second evening’s fun, with a strong traditional harp and guitar attack, punctuated by the vocals of Traci Brown. The band faced an immediate challenge for the competition as their keyboardist, Tim Doyle, a true glue of the unit, had fallen ill the night before and was unable to make the event.

The June 7 round also featured Tim Connor, who picks the guitar with the precision of a harpist plucking strings, creating clearly defined melodic lines. A one-time Guitar Champion of the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Union Grove, N.C., Connor would appeal to fans of Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins and other like-minded finger-pickers.

Pinsky & Newton were the Sonny Terry-Brownie McGhee combo of the night, with David Pinsky singing baritone-tenor blues and Phil Newton responding on the Mississippi saxophone, munching on his tin sandwich while Pinsky walked the audience down the road on guitar. Both nattily dressed gentlemen briefly played a duet on harmonicas before modulating into their version of “Smokestack Lightnin’.”

When Salem’s Gabriel Cox and his band hit the stage, they opened with a foot-marching acapella gospel stomp that got the crowd excited. “I ain’t no wolf/But I am howlin’/I ain’t no king/But I’ve got a crown,” they sang as appreciative audience members occasionally whooped and whistled like a church congregation moved by a preacher. Standout tunes by Cox’s band included “Ricochet,” a funky blues number that included shout-outs to Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Acoustic-guitarist-singer Tevis Hodge, Jr., who won the solo artist slot last year in the CBA Journey finals, provided a moment of mirth when he noted he’d forgotten his slide and had to borrow an empty hot sauce bottle from The Lehrer kitchen. Hodge is clearly one of the Portland area’s — maybe even the country’s — rising acoustic blues stars, soaking his tunes in ragtime, jazz and folk and ringing out Robert-Johnson-meets-Son-House melodies in the process.

Finally, Still Water Vibes, another great band from Salem (what is in the water there?) took the stage. Funky, bluesy and in the pocket, this capital city outfit was fronted by powerhouse vocalist Nick Wixom, who clearly has spent time wood-shedding his voice, which moved effortlessly over the band’s danceable grooves.

When Still Water Vibes was done, it was clear the judges would have a tough job ahead of themselves, and many folks in the crowd said they were glad they didn’t have to pick between all the fine acts.

Further on up the road
Johnson notes Still Water Vibes, David Pinsky & Phil Newton, Rae Gordon and Ben Rice & The iLLamatics all have a great shot at traveling to Tennessee next January.

“We have a lot of repeat acts year after year,” states Johnson. “That is because those who have been to Memphis know what they can gain and those they’ve spoken with want that same opportunity. The CBA has a history of sending really good acts that do well at the IBC. All of these finalists have the right stuff to make some noise in Tennessee.”

Johnson also thanked all the CBA Board of directors as well as volunteers who helped out with the show, from manning the merchandise table to greeting patrons at the door, as well as Brad Lehrer and his staff at the club for hosting the semifinals.

“The next phase happens at the Waterfront Blues Festival,” notes Johnson. “Three new judges will score out four finalists. They have quite a tough job ahead of them.”

Please join the Journey to Memphis Finals shortly after noon on the Front Porch Stage, July 4th.

Journey to Memphis Finals Set Order / Times:
12:10 – David Pinksy & Phil Newton
12:40 – Ben Rice & The iLLamatics
1:20 – Still Water Vibes
2:00 – Rae Gordon Band

The 2014 edition of the Cascade Blues Association’s Journey To Memphis, to select our representatives at the next International Blues Challenge, will take place on Friday, June 6th and Saturday, June 7th at The Lehrer. Twelve acts will compete before three judges, playing twenty minute sets and being scored in five categories (blues content, vocals, instrumentation, originality and stage presence), with the top two highest scoring acts each night advancing to the finals at the Waterfront Blues Festival on Friday, July 4th.

Over the years, the Cascade Blues Association has been privileged to send some of our region’s best performers, with several making it to the semi-finals and four acts that have reached the finals, two placing in second place overall. This year is another stellar year of exceptional acts that have entered, many old hats who’ve been involved in the Journey to Memphis and the IBC before, and some up and coming newcomers who will surely be making their mark as well.

Start times for the event will be 9:00 pm both nights. Admission is $10.00 each night (and that includes friends, family, wives, roadies, etc. of the acts performing as this is how we raise the money to be awarded to our winners). The Lehrer is located at 8775 SW Canyon Lane. They have a large dance floor, great sightlines and good food, so come on out and cheer on your favorites.

Schedule for each night is as follows:

Friday, June 6th

9:00 – Pat Stilwell Band
9:30 – Ben Rice & The iLLamatics
10:00 – Land of the Living
10:30 – Anne Weiss
11:00 – Rae Gordon Band
11:30 – Papa Dynamite & The Jive

Saturday, June 7th

9:00  – Martin Henry & The Blues Benders
9:30 – Tim Connor
10:00 – David Pinsky & Phil Newton
10:30 – Gabriel Cox
11:00 – Tevis Hodge Jr.
11:30 – Still Water Vibes