Behind the Scenes ~ It's All About Passion

Ladies & Gents, step right up to the greatest show on earth! Three tail-shakin', foot-stompin' happy-ass days under the blues big top and we do it all for you! It's a passion, you see. It's that thing you love that becomes as much a part of your life as breathing. Okay, the breathing thing may be a stretch but you get the idea.

Always a music lover, the blues has dominated the albums, tapes and CD's (I'm a DVD holdout, dammit) that are the soundtrack of my life. A child of the 60's and 70's, bands like the Allman Brothers and the Rolling Stones caught my ear. A casual conversation ensued a mere 30 years later and the next thing I know, I'm directing an annual blues festival. I've never worked for anything so hard or enjoyed it so much as I do the annual prep work of hosting a festival for 3,000 + people.

Step into the time machine, strap yourself in and we'll dial back to the spring of 2002. And don't touch anything, okay?

We zero in on an evening in late March. My better half, Roy E., and I are out with friends to hear a terrific blues band from Detroit, RJ Spangler and the Rhythm Rockers. We've seen and heard them once before at this same bar and they recognize us. During one of their breaks, RJ and I strike up a conversation during which I mention that I've often thought of putting on a blues festival, BUT..... RJ responds, "Let's do it!". A borrowed pen, a piece paper from the bartender and 10 minutes later, we've put down on paper all the necessary evils of throwing a blues bash. RJ is ready to go on again, I go back to my gang and the list is left on the bar.

The next night we go back to hear more from RJ and crew, and I'm met by a waitress who says, in a very serious tone, "John, (the owner) would like to see you." I still wonder why a guilty conscious immediately followed and the thought "Hmmm.....I wonder what/how/where I screwed up?" As I ponder, John walks up behind the waitress, waving a familiar piece of paper.

"You left this on the bar last night," he said. "If you're serious about this, I'll help you."

Whew....guilty conscious vaporizes immediately, rapidly replaced by a combination of sheer terror, unbridled excitement and a renewed sense of joie de vivre....a joy of life times one hundred. THIS is gonna be fun!

What happened next is a wavy blur. Steve, who owns the best butcher shop in town, got on board, as did three or four other people, and wheels were set in motion: City council meetings for approval to use city property, organizing a blues society to present the festival, creating committees and finding people to fill them, locating a tent rental, securing sponsorships to have money to get the thing off the ground. The list had come to life.

Early on, the date was set to coincide with the slowest weekend of the summer for the tourist/resort community in which we live, the weekend before Labor Day, or what we now lovingly refer to as "The fourth weekend of August." At the time the idea was hatched, that gave us less than 5 short months in which to accomplish every miniscule detail that needed tending to.

Along the way, there was always talk about "what it this flops?". I took (and still do) my festival director duties very seriously and was committed to the idea that if we did it right, we would have nothing to worry about. What no one understood, however, was what I just knew deep in my gut that not only was there nothing to worry about, there was everything to be excited about. Many times during those weeks and months leading up to that fourth weekend in August, my colleagues would rein in my enthusiasm with ominous tones suggesting that "You have to consider that this might not succeed." So I would consider it for about 5 seconds, and that gut-feeling would take over telling me that this was a success waiting for a place to happen.

With a few exceptions, every "i" had been dotted and every "t" had been crossed, and on August 23rd, 2002, the strangest thing happened: Standing at one end of the Blues Big Top, my eyes scanned the crowd before me and a quick head count indicated about 700 people having the time of their lives. Realization washed over me. I got goose bumps the size of golf balls. Every inch of me started to shake. Tears came to my eyes. I'll never forget the swell of accomplishment and pride that overwhelmed me about 7:30 on our inaugural opening night. Roy E. happened to be standing about 3 feet away and I practically jumped on him when I threw my arms around him and shrieked, "WE DID IT!!".

We had taken some mighty big baby steps, infused for all of us with one common thread: Passion. Without that, you got nuthin' baby, not even the blues.