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| 2007 West Coast Blues Hall of Fame and Award Show The 2007 West Coast Blues Hall of Fame and Award Show at Kimball's Carnival Jack London Square, 522 2nd Street, Oakland Saturday - March 10, 2007 in Oakland this month will have a strong family flavor — one that will be certainly evident in the latest crop of inductees. "Groups such as Little Stanley and the Five Brooks, the Fuller Brothers, the Whispers, the Green Brothers, the Stovall Sisters and Ike and Tina Turner are groups that contained at least half family members", says Ronnie Stewart, executive director of the Oakland-based Bay Area Blues Society, which presents the annual event. Other local artists to be inducted include Tower of Power vet Lenny Williams, Teddy "Blues Master" Watson, Terrible Tom Bowden and Big John Evans. R&B legends Ike and Tina Turner also will be enshrined during the ceremony on March 10 at Kimball's Carnival in Oakland. Besides honoring the legends of the genre, the event — first held in 1989 — pays tribute to the current crop of players working to keep blues alive in the 21st century. One player who qualifies in both realms is Oakland's Julien Vaught. He's best known as the former saxophonist for the '50s vocal act Flamingos, a group that wasinducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2001, but he's currently playing clubs and festivals as part of the Bay Area's own J.C. Smith Blues Band. The Bay Area Blues Society has selected Vaught as Blues Saxophonist of the Year and — further cementing the family theme of this year's award show — his wife, Ella Pennewell, gets the prize for R&B Vocalist of the Year."That's a first", Stewart said. "We've never had a husband and wife win (in the same year) before." Other top award winners, which are selected by a voting committee that includes concert promoters, blues players and club owners, include Bobby Rush (Blues Songwriter of the Year), Ernie Johnson (R&B Male Vocalist of the Year), Vesti Jackson (Blues Guitarist of the Year) and Magic Slim and the Tear Drops (Blues Band of the Year). Renel Lewis, an influential DJ from KMEL-FM, and Oakland's Mary Campbell, who worked as an executive in the blues and jazz record industry, will receive the Blues Society's Bob Geddins Lifetime Achievment awards. Other winners include: Matthew Martinez (Blues trumpeter), Ron Joseph (Blues band leader), Billy Branch (Blues harmonica player), Tia Carroll (Blues female vocalist), Kenny Winters (Blues comeback artist), Kevin Lockett (Blues comeback artist), The Bistro in Hayward (Blues nightclub). write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |