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PAST PORTSMOUTH BLUES FESTIVALS
PORTSMUTH BLUES FESTIVAL -- Saturday Aug 19th 2000
The 15th annual Portsmouth Blues Festival was a tribute to its headliner, Bobby Blue Bland, and offered fans a unique look at how blues singers have influenced each other. The Blues Festival was held August 19, 11 am to 7 pm, at the Strawbery Banke Museum grounds on Marcy Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
THE PERFORMERS:
BOBBY 'BLUE' BLAND
 Bobby Bland received world-wide attention in 1997 when he was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement" Grammy. He was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album for his disc, "Sad Street." Bland started recording in the 1950s, and since then has been in the national R&B charts more than 40 times. Only James Brown, Fats Domino and Ray Charles have done better. Born Robert Calvin Brooks in 1930 in Rosemark, Tennessee, the bluesman later took his stepfather's surname. He was first influenced by Blind Lemon Jefferson, who died just a month before Bland was born.
When he was 14, his family moved to Memphis, where he met Sonny Boy Williamson, and, later, Elvis Presley. In Memphis, Bland also met B.B. King, who would become a lifelong friend and major influence. In 1949, Bland, King, Johnny Ace, Rosco Gordon, Earl Forest and Willie Nix performed together as The Beale Streeters. Bland and King still perform together.
Bobby Bland learned his trademark blues snort from listening to the sermons of the Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha Franklin's father.
Among Bland's most well-known hits are "Farther Up The Road," "That's The Way Love Is," and "Turn On Your Love Light." His "Midnight Run" album received a special achievement award from Billboard Magazine because it remained on the publication's Top Black Albums chart for more than 52 weeks.
MIGHTY SAM McCLAIN
 One of a dozen children, Samuel McClain was born in 1943 in Monroe, Louisiana, the northern edge of the Bible Belt. He left school at 13, worked in cotton fields for a while, and then ran away from a troubled home life. Eventually, he ended up in Pensacola, Florida, where he got his first break while fronting for a house band at Bob Pierce's 506 Club. Local disk jockey and producer Papa Don Shroeder convinced him to go solo and offered him a recording deal in Muscle Shoals.
After a life of struggling for recognition, all the while honing his songwriting skills, Mighty Sam McClain has finally achieved the stature in the blues world he deserves. He tours extensively in Europe, where he considers himself to be even better known than in the U.S.
His influences? "Bobby Bland was a big influence on me and still is," says McClain. He lives in Epping, New Hampshire.
WEEPIN' WILLIE
 Willie Robinson's story seems like a Cinderella version of the blues. In the '50s, he was working as an MC in blues clubs, introducing and hanging out with Bobby Blue Bland, Little Willie John and Titus Turner. Back then, he was known as "Willie the Weeper," and one night in 1959 in the coal-mining town of Pottstown, Pennsylvania he shared a dressing room with B.B. King. The story goes that Robinson told King that he really wanted to be singer. King invited him to come out on stage, but Robinson confided that the only songs he knew were King's.
"Well, go sing 'em,' urged King.
Now 74, he recently released his debut album, "At Last, On Time."
"The 'at last' part is right," says Robinson, now know as "Weepin' Willie." "I didn't know if the Lord was gonna let me hang around long enough to make a record."
The CD features Mighty Sam McClain, who co-produced the album and wrote some of the songs for Weepin" Willie, and also new blues star Susan Tedeschi, who has been traveling with B.B. King and his band.
THE ROCKIN' JAKE BAND
Hailing from New Orleans, The Rockin' Jake Band will bring its rich mix of Louisiana influences to the Blues Festival's stage. Rockin' Jake's harmonica playing won the group's recent album, "Badmouth," the "Best of the Beat" award from Offbeat Magazine for 1999. Local radio fans may remember Rockin" Jake by the name his mother gave him, Larry Jacobs. Before moving to New Orleans, where his star started to rise in 1995 when his group played a club gig during Mardi Gras, he worked as a DJ on WUNH in Durham, New Hampshire and WCDQ, then broadcasting out of Sanford, Maine.
RHYTHM METHOD with guests SHARON & ROY JONES
Last August, The Blues Bank Collective and the Muddy River Smokehouse sponsored the Portsmouth Blues Battle, and Rhythm Method won the contest. Based in Portsmouth, the band describes its music as "a lascivious blend of funk, R&B and blues."
GUY DAVIS
Self-taught guitar player Guy Davis is considered by many to be at the cutting edge of the avant-garde blues movement. He plays six- and twelve-string guitar, steel dobro and harp. But his talents do not end there. He has performed on Broadway, as well as off-Broadway, as the legendary Robert Johnson, receiving rave reviews, and in his own one-man show, to critical praise. His current album is "Butt Naked Free."
ROBERT JONES
 Before he became known as a blues singer, Robert Jones hosted a radio show in Detroit, and hosted jam sessions at a local club. Now the Detroit-born Jones, who is also a minister, is a highly regarded interpreter of acoustic blues. Influenced by Son House, who was also a minister, Jones writes many of the songs he performs, and is also a talented visual artist.
T. J. WHEELER & THE SMOKERS
 A co-founder and director of the Blues Bank Collective, Thomas James "T.J." Wheeler is a veteran blues and jazz musician, and blues educator, in 1993 the first individual to be honored with the prestigious W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive in Education Award. Wheeler formed his band, The Smokers, in 1980 and they've been smokin' ever since. He is executive director of the Blues Festival.
SCOTT AINSLIE
Traveling to Portsmouth from Asheville, North Carolina, Scott Ainslie will enrich the Blues Festival with his mix of traditionally rendered Delta blues and anecdotes about the history of the blues. He authored the best-selling book, "Robert Johnson/At The Crossroads."
The Blues Bank Collective is a W.C.Handy Award
winning blues education organization whose mission is:
To further awareness of Blues Music and its African American heritage
To show the historic context that gave birth to the Blues
To use the music as a means of positive social change
And, whenever possible, to eliminate all forms of racism, intolerance and
prejudice.
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DRAWING: B. J. Johnson (1906-1986) was a great Portsmouth bluesman and teacher, as well as an inspiration to all who knew him. Art by Steven Lee.
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