PRESS RELEASE – July 27, 2011
CALLING ALL BLUES MUSICIANS!
OZARK BLUES SOCIETY OF NWA’S ANNUAL
“BLUES CHALLENGE”
What: Blues Challenge, a competition sponsored by the Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas in affiliation with the International Blues Challenge presented each year by the Blues Foundation
When: Wednesday, September 7, 2011, 6pm - 11:30pm
Where: Fayetteville, Arkansas at George’s Majestic Lounge, 519 W. Dickson Street
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: August 20, 2011On September 7, 2011, the Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas will host its Annual Blues Challenge at George’s Majestic Lounge on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The society is seeking submissions from Blues bands and solo/duo artists to compete at this event. The acts will perform 20-minute sets in a randomly-chosen order which will be announced just prior to the start of the competition. Submissions will be juried so that there will be no more than a total of 10 acts in the competition. The September 7th competition will be judged by professionals in the blues music business, such as professional music media writers, blues radio show hosts, and officers from other blues societies surrounding Northwest Arkansas.
Submissions are free, and must be received by August 20, 2011. Submissions should contain a band or solo/duo bio, a CD recording of the act or a website link where videos or songs are posted, and professional-looking photographs in a “jpg” format suitable for press releases and web posting. Submissions must be mailed before August 20, 2011, to Ozark Blues Society of NWA, P.O. Box 2004, Bentonville AR 72712, or emailed to roger.plourde@gmail.com. Questions about submissions can also be sent by email.
There will be two winners announced on the same night of the competition -- one band and one solo/duo act. Winners will then compete at the four-day 2012 International Blues Challenge on Beale Street in Memphis on January 31through February 4, 2012. All expenses are paid by Ozark Blues Society for the winners’ travel and lodging, and a daily food allowance will be provided. Past winners of this local challenge are Kory Montgomery, The Eoff Brothers, The Brick Fields Band, Adam Posnak, Scott Leeper, Isayah Warford, and Buddy Shute, among others. Kory Montgomery and the Eoff Brothers each went on to the Top 10 Finals in Memphis.
The 2012 International Blues Challenge in Memphis will be the 28th year that Blues musicians from around the world will compete for cash, prizes, and industry recognition. This is the world's largest gathering of Blues acts and is produced by The Blues Foundation and its Affiliated Organizations. At the 2011 competition earlier this year, nearly 200 bands and 80 solo/duo acts entered, filling the clubs up and down Beale Street for the semi-finals on Thursday and Friday and the finals at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday. There will be at least that many artists competing in 2012.
Here’s what some artists and attendees have had to say about their experience in Memphis at the International Blues Challenge:
Zac Harmon, the 2004 IBC winner and 2006 Blues Music Award Best New Artist, said, “Winning the International Blues Challenge is better than having a $100,000 publicity budget.”
Matt Anderson, who won first place in the 2010 solo/duo competition, said, “I pushed the whole competition thing out of my head. I didn't want to focus on that. I decided to leave that alone and went and made a point to meet as many people as I could; made a lot of great connections.”
“This was my first year attending the International Blues Challenge and it was better than any festival I have ever attended,” said Eddie Bagwell, vice president of the Tulsa Blues Society.
According to Chick Cavallero of the
More information about the Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas can be found at www.ozarkbluessociety.org, and the Blues Foundation’s website is at www.blues.org.
Official Rules, Judging Criteria and Application Details
The Ozark Blues Society has fashioned the production of the local annual “Blues Challenge” using the same guidelines and rules used by the Blues Foundation at the International Blues Challenge(IBC) in Memphis. What follows are the updated rules that will be followed for our local challenge in 2011 and at the IBC in 2012.
Questions can be directed to: webmaster@ozarkbluessociety.org
INTERNATIONAL BLUES CHALLENGE/ OBS LOCAL BLUES CHALLENGE - OFFICIAL RULES
1. Who can
enter?
In order to
qualify for the International Blues Challenge acts must enter local challenges
presented by a Society Affiliate of the Blues Foundation (The Ozark
Blues Society is an affiliate of the Blues Foundation). The act is eligible
as long as it has not ever received a Blues Music Award nomination. An act may
not participate in the IBC in three consecutive years. An act may be a band,
solo/duo or youth.
2. What is
an affiliate?
The International Blues Challenge is restricted to acts sponsored by a Blues Foundation affiliate. A list of Blues Foundation Affiliates is available at Blues Foundation Affiliates
Each of The Blues Foundation's 190+ Affiliated Organizations has the opportunity (but not the obligation) to sponsor one or more acts in the IBC. (If your nonprofit blues society is not an affiliate, contact Jay Sieleman at jay@blues.org). Each Affiliate may enter a Band in the Band Division and/or a Solo/Duo act in the Solo/Duo Division to compete in the 28th IBC in 2012. Each Affiliate may also send a youth act for the Youth Showcase.
An Affiliate
must be affiliated with The Blues Foundation no later than the conclusion of
the IBC of the preceding year to be eligible to sponsor an act for the IBC.
(For example, the 2011 IBC concluded February 5 so to sponsor an act in 2012,
the society had to be an Affiliate by that date.)
Any questions about affiliate eligibility please email jay@blues.org or call 901-527-2583 ext 12.
3. What is
a Blues Music Award nomination?
The only
artists who are deemed ineligible for the International Blues Challenge are
artists whose have been nominated for a Blues Music Award, whose name has
appeared on a final Blues Music Award ballot-in the 30-year history of the
Blues Music Awards (and formerly the W.C. Handy Awards). A searchable database of
past nominees can be found at Blues
Music Awards Search tool. All other musicians who have had peripheral
and/or professional contact through performance with a Blues Music Award
nominee, including but not limited to, touring band members and studio
musicians, are deemed eligible for the IBC.
A musician
cannot compete in the Band Division and the Solo/Duo Division, even if that
musician represents a different Affiliate in each.
Affiliates are
allowed and often do impose additional eligibility restrictions for their own
competition.
5. What is
a band? What is a solo/duo? What is youth?
The IBC and
OBS adhere to the following criteria for what constitutes a band, what
constitutes a solo/duo act, and what constitutes as a youth act.
Band - any act
with three or more musicians. Vocalists are counted as musicians for the
purpose of this competition. Both electric and acoustic instruments are
allowed.
Solo/Duo - any
act with one or two musicians. Vocalists are counted as musicians for the
purpose of this competition. Both electric and acoustic instruments are
allowed.
Youth - any
act that all members are under the age of 21 at the time of the International
Blues Challenge in Memphis.
6. How does
an Affiliate enter an act?
Affiliates in
Canada and the United States must conduct an open, judged live music
competition. Affiliates in these two
countries may not appoint an act.
The Blues
Foundation recommends that each Affiliate produce a competition to choose their
act(s). All affiliates may be required to conduct a live competition and
exceptions, if we even allow any, will be subject to advanced approval. If you already have a competition, you have
nothing to worry about. If you do not
already have a competition, but you are going to produce one this year, you
have nothing to worry about. If you are
hoping to to send someone without a competition, you best start talking to
Executive Director (Jay Sieleman) real soon and have a real good reason for not
staging a live music competition. And
even that may not work. This represents
a continuing tightening of the rules in this regard that affiliates have been
advised of in recent years.
Do not ask to
appoint an act(s) if you are in Canada or the United States, if the act
includes a board member or officer of the Affiliate, or if the act is not from
your geographic area. If the act is appointed
rather than selected through a competition, the Affiliate must submit a copy of
the official meeting minutes at which the Affiliate took action to sponsor the
act(s). The Blues Foundation reserves
the right to deny any or all appointed acts.
An Affiliate's
entrant is considered a representative of that Affiliate in every capacity.
Thus, the Affiliate remains liable for any problems created by its
representative.
All digital applications, as well as findings of eligibility and registration requirements for IBC are the responsibility of the Affiliate, NOT THE ACT. However, OBS does require that the act cooperate fully in creating and providing the proper materials to fulfill the IBC registration requirements.
Affiliates are
not only encouraged, they are expected to enforce these rules to ensure that
their acts are indeed eligible.
The Blues
Foundation will stand as the final arbiter of any eligibility disputes. All
contestants must register by the pre-determined deadline, in the format
requested, before competing in IBC. Any Band found at any time to have been
ineligible at the time of the competition will be stripped of its award(s) and
the Affiliate may be liable for financial restitution of cash and other prizes
to The Blues Foundation.
Any
International Blues Challenge questions please email joe@blues.org
or call 901-527-2583 ext. 11.
SCORING CRITERIA / BLUES CHALLENGE
Scoring
Criteria
The Ozark Blues Society follows the scoring criteria used in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. Categories include Blues Content, Vocals, Talent, Originality and Stage Presence.
1. Blues Content: Everyone has his
or her own interpretation of what is and is not Blues. Thus, any given
three-judge panel will include members with varying opinions of Blues, covering
the spectrum from the most traditional to soul/blues and rock/blues. Bands
should pick material carefully. At the OBS Challenge and at the Memphis
semi-finals and finals, the judges are Blues professionals, not a bar crowd,
and are likely to be unimpressed with song selections that are uninspired.
(Call this--with all due respect to Sir Mack Rice and Wilson Pickett--the
"no Mustang Sally rule.")
2. Vocals: The act’s vocal skills.
3. Talent: The act’s instrumental
skills.
4. Originality: Original work is
encouraged. Cover tunes are allowed but playing the recorded rendition lick by
lick is discouraged; it will not be looked upon favorably by the judges; and
will be reflected in scoring.
5. Stage Presence: Over the years,
the quality of talent has risen so dramatically that we no longer consider this
an "amateur" competition. Most contestants have performed on stage
enough to know that they are not simply playing music, but putting on a show.
This category rates how "sellable" a band may be.
To reflect the
relative importance of each category in the success of a band, a band's
score in each category is weighted. The raw score for Blues Content is
multiplied by four, the scores for Talent and Vocals by three and Originality
and Stage Presence scores are multiplied by two. The total in each category
represents the Weighted Score for that category. Total possible weighted score
is 140.
The weighted
multipliers will be Blues Content (4); Talent (3); Vocals (3); Originality (2)
and Stage Presence (2).
Penalty Points
A competing
act will be penalized one point from its Total Weighted Score (see below) for
each ten seconds that it runs overtime. There is no penalty for using less than
the allotted time. At Ozark Blues Society’s discretion, a policy of penalty for
excessive time loading-in and out will also be applied.
SCORING SYSTEM FOR JUDGES
Here
is the scoring procedure that will be used for the local Blues Challenge and
for the 2012 IBC.
1. All categories and weightings are as
previously stated.
2. Each judge will indicate his or her Raw Score
(a whole number between 1 and 10) in each category and turn that information
over to the scorekeeper.
1-3 -- Typical of a beginning blues band.
4-5 -- Typical of a local weekend band.
6-7 -- Typical of an advanced local band but not yet ready to headline a
major blues club.
8-9 -- Typical of the quality of blues artists who headline major clubs.
10 -- Typical of those who play the main stage at major festivals such as Chicago or King Biscuit Blues Festival.
3. The scorekeeper will multiply the Raw Score in each category by the established multiplier to get each judge's Weighted Score in each category for each act.
4. The Weighted Scores from each category for an act are added together to determine the acts' Total Weighted Score for each judge.
5. Any penalty points will then be deducted to obtain the act's Net Weighted Score for each judge.
6. After all acts have been judged and each act's Net Weighted Score for each judge calculated, each act will then be ranked for each judge based on that judge's order of scores, with the act receiving the judge's highest Net Weighted Score being given a ranking of 1, and so on for that judge. So, in a competition with five acts, for example, each judge ends up with the acts ranked 1 - 5 based on each judge's personal scoring habits. This results in the acts' Final Ranking Number for each judge.
7. Next, the scorer totals the Final Ranking Number from all judges for each act to determine the Gross Final Ranking. That figure is averaged (divided by the total number of judges) to achieve the Aggregate Act Ranking. The highest-scoring acts at the OBS competition will be announced as soon as possible after the last act’s competition set. At the Memphis competition, for the semi-finals the act in each venue with the best two-day total of Aggregate Act Ranking will advance to the finals. Finally, for the Memphis finals, the act with the best Aggregate Act Ranking is the top finisher.
8. In the case of a tie, the scorer shall calculate the sum of all Total Weighted Scores from all judges for the tied acts. The band with the higher sum of Total Net Weighted Scores wins.
Staging
and Equipment
The Ozark blues Society will provide
backline and sound. The setup on stage will include a drum kit with snare drum,
amps, and mics. Drummers should bring their own cymbals and kick pedals (Yes,
you will need your cymbals, you might want to bring your own snare too) and
Harmonica players can bring their own harp amp. Keyboard players may bring
their own keyboards and keyboard amps, stands will not be provided. Effects racks
and other auxiliary equipment are permitted. Musicians must include on the
Affiliated Organization's application any additional or special equipment
needed.
Competitors are prohibited from bringing their own amplifiers (harp amps and keyboard amps being the only exceptions.) Please bring a DI (if you use one) every effort will be made to provide suitable equipment.
The
Ozark Blues Society reserves the right
to approve or restrict any and all equipment an entrant wishes to bring on
stage.