Page 60 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2024 Digital Edition

became an affiliated member of the Blues Foundation and
began participating in their International Blues Challenge
(IBC). The Kentuckiana Blues Challenge is an annual contest
for bands and solo/duo acts, hosted by Stevie Ray’s Blues
Bar, from which the winners of each category advance to the
IBC in Memphis. Members of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s
Board of Directors, as well as a sizable number of general
members, travel to Memphis each year to support the event.
The KBS was honored with the Blues Foundation’s prestigious
Keeping the Blues Alive Award in 2020.
Other efforts to support the KBS mission include the
Sylvester Weaver Award, presented annually to recognize an
outstanding blues musician or support person. In 1992, The
Louisville Blues Legacy project, funded by the Kentucky Oral
History Commission, produced over 30 interviews with notable
blues luminaries of the era and is archived at the University of
Louisville’s Ekstrom Library. Back to the Blues was a series of
cable access shows highlighting local blues talent and history,
produced by the Kentuckiana Blues Society and broadcast
on TKR Cable. KBS has also located a number of previously
Eddy Clearwater at the Rudyard Kipling, post-2nd annual Garvin Gate Festival. unrecognized gravesites of historically significant local blues
Photo by Keith Clements artists and organized fundraising to purchase and dedicate
appropriate headstones. The Kentuckiana Blues Society works
Germantown Schnitzelburg Blues Festival closely with the other blues societies in the region, including
Louisville bluesman Lamont Gillispie was a resident of the Central Kentucky Blues Society (Lexington), The Kentucky
the Germantown Schnitzelburg neighborhood, famous for its Blues Society (Bowling Green) and The River Basin Blues
countless corner taverns and legendary pub crawls. It was his Society (Evansville, IN) for IBC contests, promotion of touring
dream to create a blues festival in his own backyard. In 2010, blues artists, fundraising and more.
he and Germantown neighbor and fellow Kentuckiana Blues
Society member Gary Sampson co-founded the Germantown Keith Clements is a founding member and a current director of
Schnitzelburg Blues Festival. Their goal was to feature local the Kentuckiana Blues Society and co-author of the new book
and regional blues acts and use the proceeds to support The Soulful Sounds of Derbytown, a tribute to Louisville’s African
Louisville area charities. To date, the festival has raised American musicians and entertainers. Natalie Carter is the
more than $20,000 for a variety of nonprofits including current president of the Society and a member of its Media and
the Musician’s Emergency Resource Foundation (MERF), Blues in the Schools committees. Check out the Kentuckiana Blues
Kosair Charities, Blessings in a Backpack, The Kids Cancer
Alliance and the Academy of Music Production Education and Society at www.kbsblues.com and Facebook.com/KBSBlues.
Development (AMPED). The two-day festival takes place the
first weekend in June and admission is free thanks to area
sponsors, including Check’s Café, a local landmark since
1944, and the Kentuckiana Blues Society.

Kentuckiana Blues Society
In 1988, a few blues lovers got together at the Rudyard
Kipling, a neighborhood restaurant and watering hole located
adjacent to the site of the fledgling Garvin Gate Blues Festival,
and formed the KYANA Blues Society (which has come to
be known as the Kentuckiana Blues Society or the KBS), with
a mission to preserve, promote and perpetuate the blues
tradition in the Kentucky/Indiana region. In 1989, the KBS
filed articles of incorporation and created a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization, which remains one of the longest continuously
operating blues societies in the U.S. Since its inception, the
KBS has sponsored and/or been an annual presence at most
of the local and regional blues festivals. In 1990, the KBS

58 Blues Festival Guide 2024