A Summer of Festivals and Resurrection
-- Don Vecchio
When I told a friend that I joined the Blues Society last year, he said, “I didn’t know they were organizing the depressed.” After giving him a smack to the side of the head, I remembered my first thoughts about the organization, “What did they do? Where do they come from?” Well, in the last year, I have watched BSWPA go from about $1500 in debt to a thriving, bustling group. It was a group who barely knew each other but had common goals: making this work, paying off the debts we owed, giving something to the people who had earned rewards, and showing people that we can learn from the past and blend the old and the new to make a better future. We are still trying. We do not have the experience and knowledge that others did, but we do have the passion.
Each year I look forward to the Pittsburgh Blues Festival. This would be the first year that I worked the booth for the Blues Society… and I was excited about it! I was not sure what to do, but I watched the experienced Webers. Jonnye would talk seductively about the advantages of the Blues Society and Jim would strong-arm others. Come to think of it, I believe it was the other way around. After watching them, I decided to sell some memberships. I sold three in twenty minutes. We sold seventy new memberships that weekend, dozens of t-shirts to people from ten years old to eighty years old, and put the BSWPA back into the black. We all were thrilled.
A few weeks later, we set up at the Heritage Blues Fest in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was my first time there and I was impressed. The stage was set on the riverbank; seating was excellent. The food, catfish, jambalaya, ribs and crawfish, even gave an ambiance of pure delta blues. We did well again with the sales and continued our climb back to a viable organization.
September came and it was time for the Carnegie Blues on Main Street. Great local bands all seemed to perform at peak levels. Sales were brisk again for the Blues Society. Jim Hamel, had to make an emergency t-shirt run Saturday morning. We were outselling our goals. Every board member worked at least one day at the fests.
While it’s a relief to be done with the festivals, I’m going to miss them. It was a summer that I will never forget: meeting new members and old…and seeing and meeting some great national and local acts.
I want to thank everyone who stopped by to talk to us: members, family, and musicians.
Thank you all for your support and a wonderful summer. Anyone who thinks that “the blues” are declining in Pittsburgh has not seen what I have this summer. I can honestly say blues fans are the greatest.
LONG LIVE THE BLUES!
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