Blues News

Ozark Blues Society
of Northwest Arkansas

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BluesTalk Chat Room

The idea behind this chat room is a common meeting place for all blues fans and musicians. There are so many places around the world, so many forums, bulletin boards and websites. I thought that a live chat room that all these blues related
sites could easily implement on their site would be a good way to bring together
many, many blues fans in one place.

If you have a blues society website, a festival site, a band site or any site at all that relates to blues, you can easily put the login page on your website. It’s just a simple bit of code.

You can even go to this page: http://bswpa.org/bluestalk.htm, copy the source and put the html page on your site verbatim.

You can even put a link on your Myspace page. If you have any questions, you can email me at paulbaughman@hotmail.com

Ozark Blues Society Annual Blues Challenge
Winners and Participants - 2008

AND THE WINNERS ARE:

BEST SELF-PRODUCED CD: OCIE FISHER & THE HIPP DOGS (bio not available)

Ocie Fisher at JamFest #11

SOLO/DUO WINNER: KORY MONTGOMERY & ISAYAH WARFORD

Although Isayah Warford and
Kory Montgomery were both raised around the Fayetteville, AR music scene, their music roots back to dirty delta blues. Isayah competed at IBC in 2003, and Kory has competed twice, once going to the Final 10. Isayah’s intensely thoughtful guitar and vocal
work combined with Kory’s unorthodox use of common instruments melds into a sound of their own. Kory has opened for BB King, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Michael Burks, Robert Randolph, James Cotton, and many other national acts. Since then they’ve both performed across the country with various bands.

sibc873323

BAND WINNER: OREO BLUE

A dynamic and powerful saxophone blends and battles with astonishing and blistering guitar buttressed by a rock solid and grooving rhythm section. Widely regarded as one of its regions top live music acts, Oreo Blue has thrilled audiences for over 17 years at
clubs, festivals, corporate parties, and special events as a proud representative of the State of Arkansas. Oreo Blue is spearheaded by
guitarist/vocalist, Gary Lee Hutchison of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Brian Crowne on
saxophone/rhythm guitar/vocals from Fayetteville, Arkansas, bassist Rod Williamson from Fort Smith, Arkansas, and drummer/vocalist, Stephen Boudreaux from Rogers, Arkansas. Oreo Blue has self-produced seven independently released audio CDs including a full-length CD/DVD concert tribute to Jimi Hendrix that has been critically acclaimed. A stunning website, www.oreoblue.com, is also self-produced and is complimented by a very active MySpace presence under the auspice of "oreobluemusic."

YOUTH SHOWCASE: NATHAN & CHRISTINE ARONOWITZ

Christina M. Aronowitz,
Nathan R. Aronowitz

Ages 12 & 13

Nathan is an adventurous young and aspiring musician. Since his Ganna introduced him to ‘St. Louis Blues’ when he was nine years old, Nathan has not looked back. Music is more than a feeling to Nathan, it is a living, breathing experience. It is his heartbeat pumping rhythm to his left hand, a veracious creativity telling a story with his right, and a tethering soul harmoniously balancing both. Nathan enjoys playing for friends, family, and classmates. At the 11:00 AM service, he has been known to stir the beat of more than a few surprised Methodists with his bluesy arranged ‘Amazing Grace’.

Joining Nathan is younger sister and aspiring singer, Christina. When just a toddler, Christina could sing the entire soundtrack to ‘Cats’, and many other Broadway scores. Just turning on to the ‘Blues’ scene, Christina is no rookie. She sang with the ‘University of Arkansas Children’s Choir’ and recently performed ‘I Love You Baltimore’ from ‘Hairspray’ the musical at her school talent show. Christina, too, has a soulful and determined spirit. As such, she recently took up bass guitar… for the joy,… and so not to be outdone by big brother.

Together, Nathan and Christina look forward to exploring the soulfully woven fabric of ‘Blues’ and to discovering their youthful presence within a rich history of ‘Blues’ musicians.

OTHER PARTICIPATING BANDS AND SOLO/DUO ACTS:

HERE ARE THE WONDERFUL ARTISTS WHO COMPETED IN LIVE PERFORMANCES FOR OUR BLUES CHALLENGE ON 10/23/08:

Buddy Shute & Mark McGee

Dan Hein & Justin Hamby

Dwyane Ever & Emily Knight

Eric Witthans

Isayah Warford & Kory Montgomery

THESE ARE THE ARTISTS WHO SUBMITTED THEIR MUSIC IN THE “BAND CATEGORY”:

Butane McClane

Ocie Fisher & The Hip Doggs

Oreo Blue

Murky Waters

THESE ARE THE ARTISTS WHO SUBMITTED CDs FOR THE “BEST SELF-PRODUCED CD CATEGORY”:

Butane McClane

Ocie Fisher & The Hip Doggs

Murky Waters

The Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival - 2007
***Updated 2008 Info Coming Soon***

The Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival (“It’s still The Biscuit to me!”) took place last week, Oct. 4-6, in Helena, Ark. The Ozark Blues Society has become a well-known entity by artists and other celebrities at the Biscuit and other major blues events. The performances this year were exceptional, as always. One of the highlights was Bobby Rush performing solo with an acoustic guitar and harmonica, playing Delta blues straight from the heart. It was quite memorable.

OBS keeps a high-profile at The Biscuit. Liz Lottmann (OBS VP) goes every year and talks up OBS, getting autographs for the raffle guitars given away each year at OBS’s Blues in the Natural State festival. All the artists who graciously sign the guitars know that the autographs are used to raise funds for OBS’s festivals and blues challenge winners. They never seem to mind that she pushes a guitar at them all the time. She got about 25 autographs on this year’s guitar, and took pictures as the artists signed. Jim Rose (OBS board member) is on the backstage crew every year to herd all the artists’ cars and tour buses, making sure everyone gets a good spot and gets to the stage on time. Paul Kelso (OBS member) goes every year and takes some of the most intimate photos of performances you’ve ever seen. At least one NWA artist performs each year at The Biscuit. This year, it was The Tablerocks
featuring R.J. Mischo.

The guitar will be on display at OBS events up until the next Blues in the Natural State festival.

Ozark Blues Society Annual Blues Challenge - 2009

CONTACT: Liz Lottmann, President/Event Coordinator,
Ozark Blues Society – 479-531-3659 prez@ozarkbluessociety.org
Ozark Blues Society events@ozarkbluessociety.org or ozarkbluessociety@yahoo.com

WHEN:    TBA

WHERE:  TBA

HOW MUCH: For existing Sonicbid members: $20 submission fee
                     via www.sonicbids.com/AnnualBluesChallenge
                    For new Sonicbid members: $20 + $4.95 discounted membership fee



DEADLINE: TBA

WINNERS WILL RECEIVE expenses paid trip to Memphis to compete in International Blues Challenge.

The Ozark Blues Society of Northwest Arkansas announces its Annual Blues Challenge in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where the two winning blues acts will be sent, expenses paid, to compete in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. Two days of intense blues music competition will take place on Wednesday, October 24^th and Thursday, October 25^th, at George’s Majestic Lounge on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Both solo/duo artists
and bands will compete, and a winner will be chosen in each category to go to Memphis. Each year over 125 bands come from all over the country to compete in Memphis, and the event is attended by blues concert promoters, club owners, record label producers, and blues society members and blues fans from all over the world.

Bands from any area outside Northwest Arkansas, or from any other blues society, are encouraged to send their submissions. Ozark Blues Society wants to find the performers who are most likely to make a great showing in the Memphis competition. For the five years that Ozark Blues Society has been participating in the international challenge, two of their bands have made it to the Final 10 – Kory Montgomery and The Eoff Brothers. That’s a statistic that beats all odds, since there are over 125 bands that compete each year. Ozark Blues Society closely follows the rules and judging criteria of the Blues Foundation in order to increase the likelihood of its winning band to make a great showing in Memphis.

The local event takes place in Fayetteville, Arkansas over two nights of competition. All the bands chosen to compete in the Ozark Blues Society event will follow the rules laid out by the Blues Foundation. One of the first rules is that the bands must make their submissions through the Sonicbids website at www.sonicbids.com/AnnualBluesChallenge

The submission fee is $20, and if performers aren’t already members, Sonicbids will offer a discounted Sonicbids membership of only $4.95 during the submission process. All proceeds will go toward the artists’ expenses at the Memphis competition.

All entries will be juried for blues content and musicianship, up to10 acts per night will be chosen to compete in Fayetteville. The judges’ panel in Fayetteville will be a combination of blues club owners, record producers, radio programmers, concert promoters, board members of other blues societies outside of Northwest Arkansas.

In order to continue to raise funds for the bands’ expenses in Memphis, several fundraising concerts and events will go on through the rest of the year. The winning artists will “sing for their supper” for a fundraiser later in the year, and different opportunities to support the society’s efforts will be announced up until January. Details will be kept updated at http://www.ozarkbluessociety.org.

Blues InThe Natural State 2009 Concert Series
Coming Soon!!!

More Information

Blues Festivals
For information on summer blues festivals. Visit Blues Festival Guide or check out the list at Blues Revue. The Blues Festival Guide lists 530+ Blues Festivals in 2007.
Here's how they breakdown by month:

   January = 12
   February = 16
   March = 12
   April = 20
   May = 58
   June = 99
   July = 105
   August = 102
   September = 69
   October = 22
   November = 17
   December = zero

BLUES KREWZ!!!

Is the drive keeping you from the Party?
      * Want no stress travel to and from the event? *
                     Interested in making new friends in the "Blues" world near you?

Ozark Blues Society presents "BLUES KREWZ".This is a limo service that Ozark Blues Society will arrange for you to have round trip to travel "in style" to Ozark Blues Society events.

Set pick up and drop off locations will be made available for your convenience. Pick ups available in Bella Vista, Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale. Limo's will hold up to 8 passengers for as low as $40 ea. (price includes gratuity for the driver).

To reserve your seat OR a whole limo for the next event, send an email to:
mailto:blueskrewz@bluebottle.com

Start the party on the way       -         Make new friends       -          No stress travel

George’s Majestic Lounge and Ozark Blues Society Presents...

Crowne and GMS/Capital C: Concerts will also announce the performers for George’s 80th Anniversary Festival benefiting Children’s House. “We had 3 great nights of music last year but since this year is very historic, we’ve assembled a line-up of unbelievable acts, some of which have never played Northwest Arkansas”, Crowne explained. “It’s also a way to thank our sponsors and the music lovers of this area while continuing our support of Children’s House.”

Ozark Blues Society Myspace Page
Please visit for more interactive communication

We'll have blogs and calendar dates for upcoming events listed on the myspace page as well as our website. Come visit us at: http://www.myspace.com/ozarkbluessociety

Come say hi, give us your thoughts use our site as a place to look for bands needing players and players needing bands. A good general stompin' ground to keep some local "live" communication.

Help us keep the Blues Alive!

Ozark Blues Society Monthly Blues Jams are back!

Ozark Blues Society announces monthy Blues Jams at Jose's on Dickson St. in Fayetteville.

Come on out and show us what you got! These events are for everyone...join in the fun!

The Jams will be the 2nd Sunday of every month beginning in March at 4:30pm.
(Exception will be April - will be 4th Sunday (5/22) due to holiday)
We'll perform on the patio, weather permitting - otherwise inside.

Jose's will be offering a delicious "Blues Plate" Special.

*There is a cover charge of $5.00

*100% of the proceeds goes to Blues in the School and supporting local bands going to the annual International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN.