The Blues Trust is giving you the opportunity to spread the good word. The Blues bailout plan features an economic stimulus package that allows you to enjoy past Boston Blues Festival performances and share the same with a friend. Buy Live at the Boston Blues Festival Volume II for the regular price of $17 (includes shipping) and we will gift you an additional copy FREE OF CHARGE!

This offer is limited to the Holiday Season; in other words, from now until Ground Hog Day. Hey, you celebrate what you want; we’ll celebrate anything that has to do with the end of cold and darkness! We have faith that the recording will serve you well and get you through the Wintertime Blues. We wish you the best for a positive New Year

For over a decade, the Blues Trust has treated the city of Boston to two days of free Blues music each September by the banks of The Charles River. Live at the Boston Blues Festival Volume II is a sampling of some of the outstanding Blues talent showcased at the event. Featuring live performances by Blues Trust Lifetime Achievement Award recipients Honeyboy Edwards, Lazy Lester, Louisiana Red, Hubert Sumlin and Chick Willis, there are also stellar performances by Duke Robillard, Sugar Ray & The Bluetones, Darrell Nulisch and The Love Dogs. Others performers include David Maxwell, Kid Bangham, Monster Mike Welch, Dwight Ritcher, Lydia Warren, Hot Tamale Brass Band and Dennis Brennan.

Click the button to buy it now securely through paypal orsend $17 to:BLUES TRUST PRODUCTIONS 75 Altamont Avenue Melrose, MA 02176

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Blues Trust Productions
75 Altamont Avenue
Melrose, MA 02176

BLUES TRUST PRODUCTIONS ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The following are highlights of the promotional, charitable, entertainment and educational accomplishments of this non-profit 501(c) 3 public charity :

Promoting blues music and musicians through the free two-day Boston Blues Festival, exposing the genre to a mass audience

Established Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes and honors veteran blues musicians annually

Established Berklee College of Music Scholarship in memory of Teddy Bliss

Presented free performance by Lydia Warren at Arlington High School

Presented Music Clinic at Brandeis University

Publicity of music venues and other music industry business

Publish online Blues news and publicity to large media list and fan base

Charitable donations and musician aid include:

Contributed to burial expense for wife of drummer Leroy Pina
Contributed to Spider John Koerner medical expenses
Contributed to burial expense of Brewer Phillips
Contributed to Eddie Kirkland Transportation Fund
Contributed to Bobby Rush Band Fund
Contributed to John Lee Hooker Foundation
Contributed to Matt Guitar Murphy Medical Fund
Contributed to Luther Guitar Junior Johnson Medical Fund
Subsidized artist residency for Brian Templeton and Birds of Prey
Donation to New England Blues Society Medical Fund
Obtained and distributed donated musical instruments
Distributed grocery gift certificates to needy artists and families
Contributed to Shirley Lewis Medical Fund
Contributed to Robert Killoran Memorial Music Scholarship
Contributed to the Teo Leyasmeyer Family Fund

OUR BENEVOLENCE IS LIMITED ONLY BY OUR BUDGET

BLUES TRUST NEWS

BOSTON BLUES FESTIVAL SUSPENDS PRODUCTION

It is with mixed emotions that Blues Trust Productions announces that, for the first time since 1995, there will not be a free Boston Blues Festival in September at the Hatch Band Shell. Due to spiraling usage fees administered by the State of Massachusetts for the venue and the challenge of securing the necessary support of sponsors, arts councils, and media coverage, there is no other option than to take time to rethink how best to fulfill the mission of promoting Blues music and assisting the artists who perform it.

We are grateful to those who assisted us in presenting and showcasing this great music in the picturesque setting by the Charles River. We were astonished that we were able to pull it off once. The twelve year run is nothing short of a miracle! The acknowledgement and appreciation of veteran Blues artists, who were recognized with the Blues Trust Lifetime Achievement Award, made the hard work gratifying.

The positive aspect of this announcement is that we are now free of the stress and uncertainty of meeting the burden of raising the necessary capital to present the artists. To be able to pursue other passions and make sacrifices, which benefit us personally, is a new and liberating feeling. Springtime is the time for renewal and rebirth! You’re invited to check back to this space to witness our metamorphosis.

8-12-08

The next two weeks are loaded with live music in New England. With the Boston Blues Festival on hiatus, this gives us a chance to sit back and look at how others do it. The beauty is that each and every event has its own personalities, which are a derivative of the booking policy, the individual music tastes and the way the music is presented and the venue of the production. These elements all make up the vibe, felt by the audience and performers and each is unique.

Rumor has it that Greg Sarni has been chosen to receive a Keeping the Blues Alive Award by the promoters. Everyone who has either owned a Blues club or been to one has already received this award. They are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel now!

Next weekend on Sunday, August 24, the companion Green Harbor Roots and Blues Festival will be presented. Both events are held at the Marshfield Fair.

Also this weekend, in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, it’s The White Mountain Boogie and Blues Festival.

Next Saturday, August 23 rd, the Westford Rotary Club present their annual Blues’N’Brews Festival. at Nashoba Valley Ski Area.

Buddy Guy has just released his latest recording on Silvertone Records titled Skin Deep. It is produced by Bay State native Tom Hambridge, who now lives in Nashville. Hambridge is listed on song writing credits on 10 of the 12 tracks on the disc. TH has assembled some of his friends for the recording, including Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. Other special guests include Eric Clapton and Robert Randolph.

On the tracks which Hambridge isn’t on drums, Richie Hayward of Little Feat, who has appeared with Guy for years, hits the kit. Reese Wynans, who played keyboards with Stevie Ray Vaughan adds his talent, as does David Grissom on guitar and Willie Weeks holds down the bottom on bass throughout the recording.

Standout track, Whose Gonna Fill Those Shoes, features Boston area guitar protégé 9 year old Quinn Sullivan. The track is a reference to the departure of so many Blues icons and who will step in to fill the void. Those real deal cats are still out there, but now that the Boston Blues Festival is on parole, our questions is who is going to book the old school Blues?

TH returns to town at the end of the month, playing Parker Wheeler’s Blues Party at the Grog in Newburyport on August 31. The next night, Labor Day, there is a benefit at the Grog for Amadee Castenell.

Tommy Hambridge will be interviewed on WBRS True Blues tomorrow around 11 AM ET. He’ll chat with Greg Sarni about making the new Buddy Guy disc, we’ll spin some tracks from Skin Deep and no mention of TH can go without paying homage to one of his early bandleaders, guitar God Roy Buchanan.

True Blues will also feature some of those who are filling the shoes that you won’t hear about in the mainstream, like 2001 Blues Trust Lifetime Achievement award recipient Chick Willis. His new release Don of the Blues, includes the following lyrics from the song, I Had the Blues Two Times:

“There ‘s a whole lotta old Blues players, sittin’ around looking like they had a wreck, most of them are retired from the Blues, but they don’t get no retirement check, they got the Blues y’all, and it sure is hard. Somebody please take in the old Blues players and give ‘em a Blues payin’ job.”

News from Martha’s Vineyard is that Maynard Silva left this Earth early on the morning of July 16. Silva had been battling cancer for the past few years. Maynard's memorial service will be on Saturday August 2nd... at the New Ag Hall in West Tisbury from 4 to 8pm

Maynard Silva was as pure a Bluesman as there is in the World today. He learned his craft at the feet of Bukka White and was also inspired by the raw Chicago Blues of JB Hutto, Hound Dog Taylor and Brewer Phillips.

Whether playing Telecaster or National, Maynard Silva’s growl and grit were a direct lineage to those whose spirit he assumed and emoted each and every time he picked up a stringed instrument. As important as his musical contributions and respect for presenting authentic Blues music were, with Maynard, it all started with his attitude and philosophy of what was real and what wasn’t.

The Boston Blues Festival was started as a vehicle to give artists like Maynard a voice. A way for us to get up on the pulpit and tell anyone who would listen, “You have to check this guy out.” He played the very first Boston Blues Festival, with JB Hutto’s Band.

When Brewer Phillips died weeks before his scheduled Boston Blues Festival performance and Lifetime Achievement Award presentation, Maynard was there. He led the Brewer Phillips Memorial Jam, which appears on A Beanpot of Songs.

Maynard played the 10 th Anniversary Reunion in 2005 in the middle of undergoing chemotherapy. He believed in the Blues Trust and our efforts to publicize the music and improve the lives of those who perform it. I don’t think he was ever paid more than gas money and ferry fare from the Vineyard. And he was OK with it. As a matter of fact, when he wasn’t at the Hatch Shell, he was sending the Blues Trust a contribution! Maynard was a sign painter; he didn’t have a whole lot of cash to donate to a struggling non profit. But he did it anyway.

Maynard Silva was an intelligent individual with and edge to him. If you combined the ornery personalities of Gatemouth Brown and Robert Lockwood and mixed in some Portuguese spice, that was Maynard. He had a mystic ability to cast off the veils that obscure life’s truths to reveal a reality that most of us are afraid to accept.

I have only encountered a few of his ilk in my existence and his aura caught my attention the very first time our paths crossed. I was a DJ at a radio station on Martha’s Vineyard and I met Maynard at a promotion for station sponsor Island Tire. There was this guy banging away on a National guitar, amidst the retreads. I can still smell the stale air emitted from the round rubber objects that no doubt lost air pressure in awe of the power of the performance. One of life’s greatest pleasures is to have no expectations and then to get blown off your feet; garage music indeed!

Watching Maynard and Silvertone Steve trying to “out slide” each other at the first "Charles River” Boston Blues Festival. They used any object they could find to make their guitars cry and scream, including the steel railing and the necks of each others guitars. Meeting his young son, Milo, who was obviously wise beyond his years due to the influence, afforded him by a Dad who cared. It was the first time I saw a 10 year old with a walking stick and behaving like a Bodhisattva. Backstage conversations.

His solo performance at the 2000 Boston Blues Festival; bridging the borderline Blues of the Vermont power trio of the Seth Yacavone Band and the West Side

His triumphant return to the Hatch Shell stage in 2005 in between chemo treatments. Talk about tough! He and Rick Russell backstage talking about subjects they were familiar with; Blues music and the Big C.

Hanging on the front porch on the Vineyard, listening to Maynard spin stories about meeting his Blues heroes and the early years of Boston and Rhode Island Blues.

Most of all, I will remember Maynard for the inspiration, support and sage advice that were always available at the end of the line anytime I picked up the phone to vent. Maynard would usually impart a; “Gregory my boy, don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Whatever obstacle we had to overcome to get him up in front of a new audience was always worth it. There was a mutual respect and appreciation for each other that is just hard to come by. In a superficial world, awash in a sea of veneer, Maynard Silva was pure Mahogany.

For more insight on the man and the legacy he left behind, read last summer’s Vineyard Gazette article about Maynard and Milo.

Blues Trust Productions 75 Altamont Avenue Melrose, MA 02176

Blues Trust Productions
75 Altamont Avenue
Melrose, MA 02176