Editor’s note: Paying The Blues Forward is a grass roots mission to raise money for touring artists that are now out of work. The fundraiser has pledged to raise $1000 each to 50 artists in serious hardship that reached out. In 5 days the GoFundme project has been able to pay 8 of those artists.
A Note from Mike Zito & Nick Moss
Many of my musician friends are out of work during this pandemic. Not just a little out of work, completely out of work. Not everyone is comfortable asking for assistance or maybe tech savvy to do online shows or streaming. This is all very new to everyone.
I started a “Quarantine Blues” recording project to help feed my family and truly help my band members who were coming home with nothing after a large cancelled tour. The band and I have committed 10 original songs available for free to the world and in return we were given much needed support from our fans and the Blues community.
Now, we are extending this campaign to our large Blues community. We are asking artists that are in need of assistance to contribute a song for this project and in return we are going to try and raise $1000 each for the artist and their band members. We feel this is a time of need, but we want to give back with what we do best – music.
We have a list of musicians and bands that are in serious need right now and they are going to each contribute new music to the project. We will announce an artist and band in need and once the amount of money has been reached, we will then announce a new artist and band…and so on.
PLEASE if you can share – share what you can – if you cannot share financially, please share the campaign with your family and friends.
We are hopeful that the end result here will be hours of new and wonderful music that can help us all come closer and ease some anxiety and give a little hope.
Sincerely,
Mike Zito and Nick Moss