November 15, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Maggie Mortensen
tel 530.873.9048
email magmorten@worldnet.att.net
web www.sonnyboy.com/homepage/glendora.html
BLUES HARP SUMMIT AND TEACH-IN BENEFITS THE SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON II LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY CENTER IN HIS HOMETOWN OF GLENDORA, MISSISSIPPI
On December 5th and 6th, 1998, prominent blues harmonica players from around the country will convene in the Mississippi Delta town of Glendora, birthplace of blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson II (Aleck Rice Miller), to pay tribute to his musical legacy and conduct a blues harp teach-in to benefit the town's newly-opened Sonny Boy Williamson Library and Community Center. They will distribute 250 donated harmonicas to the children of Glendora attending the Teach-In.
Sugar Blue, Paul deLay, Frank Frost, Blind Mississippi Morris, Arthur Williams, Mark Sallings and Charlie Sayles will all participate in the weekend, and New Orleans will be well represented by Jumpin' Johnny Sansone, Bruce 'Sunpie' Barnes, Rockin' Jake Jacobs, Paula Rangell, and Mark McGrain (of the Anders Osborne Band). The Delta Blues Education Project will be represented by acclaimed blues teacher "Mister Johnnie" Billington and some of the Project's advanced students. Several regional amateur players from around the South will also be assisting with the teach-in.
Public Harp Summit performances by the players contributing their time to the teach-in will occur on the evenings of December 4th (at B.B. King's Club in Memphis), December 5th (at the Sonny Boy Music Hall in Helena, Arkansas), and December 6th (at Huey's in Memphis).
All player/teachers and other supporters of the event are volunteering their time and skills without pay to benefit the Center and the town of Glendora, an extraordinarily impoverished community even by the usual dire standards of the Mississippi Delta area. With a population of 400, more than 93% of its inhabitants live more than 50% below the poverty limit. Children comprise 167 of Glendora's citizens, many of whom are relatives of Sonny Boy Williamson but had never heard his music until a video about him was shown at the Center's dedication last August. Glendora's mayor, Johnny B. Thomas, is himself a cousin of Sonny Boy on his mother's side.
A major media sponsor of the Summit & Teach-In will be Bluestown.com, which is the most comprehensive streaming media blues site as well as a satellite site of the largest broadcasting site on the internet, Broadcast.com. In conjunction with the Southern Music Network, Bluestown.com will provide the bandwidth to permit the event to be listened to over the Internet by blues fans around the world. Several national and regional music publications and broadcast entities will also be on hand to report on the event. The Memphis Flyer, KASU radio in Arkansas and WEVL radio in Memphis will also be media sponsors of the event.
Supporters of the event include The Southern Music Network of Alabama; Hohner Harmonicas; Hering Harmonicas of Brazil; Lee Oskar Enterprises; The Memphis Flyer; The Sonny Boy Blues Society; The Beale Street Blues Society; MCA Records; the Delta Blues Education Project; The Blues Foundation; Jay Sheffield Entertainment of Memphis.
Lee Oskar has donated a dozen valuable player-autographed harmonicas to be used as raffle prizes in a book and record donation campaign for the Center, as will be ten vintage Sonny Boy tee-shirts donated by the Hohner Company, two complete sets of Sonny Boy's Chess Records catalog (7 CDs), donated by Universal Music Group/MCA Records, and Handy Awards posters donated by The Blues Foundation.
Additional corporate and private funding is needed to help defray the travel expenses of the player/teachers who are volunteering their time; interested sponsors can contact Maggie Mortensen, the volunteer coordinator of the event, by telephone at 530.873.9048 or by email at magmorten@worldnet.att.net.
The Sonny Boy Williamson Community Center and Library is in need of all of the kinds of items imaginable: books, records, videos, computer equipment, etc. Mayor Thomas's own particular wish is for video equipment which would enable the Center to offer skills training to Glendora's residents via satellite connections.
Individuals interested in donating books, records, equipment or money to the Sonny Boy Center can send them in care of:
The Sonny Boy Williamson Community Center & Library
ATTN: Mayor Johnny B. Thomas
132 Main Street
Glendora, Mississippi 38928
All contributions will be tax-deductible under the the Center's non-profit status, and all donors will be eligible to win the premiums donated by supporters.
Updates on the event itself as the date draws nearer, including additional player/teachers and sponsors as they are added, will be available as a page on the "official" Sonny Boy Williamson web site (http://www.sonnyboy.com/homepage/glendora.html).
For background information on Sonny Boy Williamson, visit Sonny Boy's Lonesome Cabin (http://www.sonnyboy.com).