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| Blues Festival Guide Keeps The Blues Alive The Blues Foundation today announced the newest recipients of their "Keeping the Blues Alive" awards. The Blues Festival Guide was awarded the honor in the Print Media category. Each year, The Blues Foundation presents the Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Awards to individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the Blues world. The Blues Festival Guide will be honored at The Blues Foundation's 2006 Keeping the Blues Alive Award ceremony on Saturday, January 28, 2006, in Memphis Tennessee. The KBA ceremony will be part of the International Blues Challenge weekend of events. The Blues Foundation is a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, the home of the Blues. With more than 135 affiliated Blues organizations, and membership spanning some twenty countries, the Foundation serves as the hub for the worldwide passion for Blues Music. The Blues Festival Guide, entering its 4th year of publication, is an annual magazine (for which the award was given), a website directory of all things blues, especially festivals, and a free blues E-guide for on-line subscribers. The magazine is distributed in the USA free to 100, 000 fans of music, especially blues music. All 120+ blues societies across the country receive a major allocation of magazines to distribute to their members. Additionally the magazine can be found at record stores, music stores, museums, blues clubs and blues festivals across the country. "Our readers naturally include blues enthusiasts, but we also reach and develop the more casual blues fan who loves the music but has not had access to a publication devoted to blues" says Kaati Gaffney, publisher for The Blues Festival Guide. "Creating new fans of the blues, that's how we contribute to keeping the blues alive". Street date for the 2006 issue of The Blues Festival Guide is April 24, 2006. Unlike the Blues Music Awards, the highest award in the Blues voted on by the thousands of members of The Blues Foundation, the KBAs are awarded to non-performers strictly on the basis of merit by a select panel of Blues professionals. Noted educator, author, journalist, and KBA Chairman Art Tipaldi notes "The KBA is awarded for the recipient's lifetime body of work; we don't view the recipient as the winner of a 'best of the year' category." Future goals for The Blues Festival Guide include expansion of distribution. According to Gaffney "We receive requests for three times more magazines than we can currently afford to print. We are actively pursuing sponsorship from several companies whose participation will allow for expanded distribution in the USA and perhaps even into Canada." Annually there are over 300 blues festivals just in the USA each year, with total attendance figures in excess of two million blues fans. "We have lots of room to grow". write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |