Nedanstående brev har cirkulerat på Internet sedan det skrevs i juni. Kritiken mot Blues Foundation tycks öka allt mer. Jefferson har tidigare över åren uppmärksammat problematiken samt Blues Foundations platthet, men här kliver Ronnie Stewart rakt in i lejonkulan.

To Board Members and Executive Committee of the IBC

I am Ronnie Stewart, Executive Director of the Bay Area Blues Society. This is our first year of being affiliates of the Blues Foundation and participation in the IBC. This letter is to explain why I am so let down with the Blues Foundation’s practices, policies, goals and objectives of this African American musical art form called The Blues.

The Bay Area Blues Society has been the most active blues society in the country since 1985. We present Career Goals Seminar, 5 major blues festivals, a 9 week summer Home Grown Blues Series, Blues in the Schools, the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame & Awards Show and in the last few months just received multi-million dollar funding for the Music They Played on 7th Street Oakland Walk of Fame. Our programming also includes the Bay Area Blues Society Caravan of Allstars to assist the unsung blues heroes the opportunity to perform at big festivals and clubs. We have also released 2 CDs: The Music They Played on 7th Street and Salute To West Coast Blues. Did you know that even with all of our innovative accomplishments we are still required to join the Blues Foundation as an affiliate in order to be considered for the Keeping the Blues Alive Award, although I am told there have been non affiliate recipients.

After traveling to the IBC from Oakland, California, spending 5 days and over $2,000 on the trip I realized this was a wake up call. A wake up call for the future and legacy of The Blues as an art form indigenous to the African American and America’s only contribution to the world of culture born and bred in the United States.

I am sure that you have noticed by now that I have used the term African American twice. Ironically that was the amount of African American bands in the IBC. Only two (2) out of one hundred and fifty seven (157) bands nationally and internationally were African American. It is a shame to the entire African American blues musician community and the African American community at large since the fact of the matter is the Blues is an American Art Form that African American’s have birth right to.

My problem with the Blues Foundation is that you have not spent any time or effort doing any type of outreach or recruitment of African American Blues Bands for the IBC. If you did, your effort was not at all successful. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few African Americans as members of a band but there was a critical shortage of REAL blues bands. Your statement for the judges to interpret blues as they see it or hear it is far too broad and liberal!!!! That would explain the excessive number (5) of harmonica bands in the finals. The IBC is redefining what true blues is. Blues is not some very fast pace shuffle, 3 piece band with a harp player playing a million notes per bar, singing flat and hollering some Louis Jordan style song with the guitar player as a T-Bone Walker copycat with no creativity or originality. Unfortunately the judges gave them enough points to make it to the finals.

I want all of the IBC Board Members to understand that this letter is not about who won or who lost but what is happening to the people who created this unique art form that is indigenous to the African American. It is plain to see that none of the Blues Foundation goals include assisting African Americans. The Blues Foundation claims to save the blues, but not the people who created this art form and I want to know why not?

When you make blues music a sport; when say you won or lost; when you say you came in 2nd or 3rd ; when you say if you want to play the game you must pay to get there then be judged unfairly, when you say all of these things; you are sending the blues on it’s way to extinction or shall I say that African American’s will be extinct when it comes to playing the blues.

I am not trying to play the race card but….I can’t believe that the Blues Foundation doesn’t know or understand the plight of the African American Blues musician. Do you understand that almost all of the blues festivals in this country are 80-90% white? If you did your homework, picked up a copy of Blues Festival Guide, picked up some of the newsletters displayed at the Doubletree Hotel during the IBC or looked at any record company’s roster you would see Blacks Are Missing (BAM). Have you, as board members of the Blues Foundation, taken the time to know how bad it is for African American musicians to get on a blues festival or into blues clubs across the United States? Did you know that in California, the Sonora Blues Festival; Fire on the Mountain and the Santa Cruz Blues Festival book only one African American, the headliner? Last year BB King was the only African American in the line up for Santa Cruz’s two day festival. This year, 2007, to my knowledge Etta James is the only African American on the festival! I know you can’t tell a festival promoter who to book on their festival or tell a club owner to hire African American bands. These organizations and people posing as blues supporters should know blues history and realize that what they are doing is not keeping the blues alive. With some very careful thought, the Blues Foundation, as a blues organization can come up with some way to include more African American’s in the almost all white festival and club circuit.

If you are white, like most of your board is, then you will probably think I am crazy or don’t know what I am talking about. I have been a blues musician for over forty years and am executive director of the Bay Area Blues Society. I am a blues historian that works with the University of California Berkeley’ Oral History and Journalism Departments in documenting West Coast Blues and have employed over 250 musicians annually for the last 21 years.

The question is, how and why aren’t black blues musicians getting the same opportunity as white blues musicians? I have played guitar with the crème of the blues crop, Roy Brown, Big Mama Thornton, Ruth Brown, Lowell Fulton, Jimmy McCracklin, Bobby Rush, Little Joe Blues, Chick Willis John Lee Hooker and Dottie Ivory among others. All of the previously named great blues musicians would talk to me for hours on end about how unfair it was for them when they saw so many young white musicians getting to perform at the big festivals and at good paying club dates. These great blues musicians knew they were so much better than the white musicians who were trying to copy their style. I would tell them that there are too few African American festival promoters, club owners, blues record company owners, booking agency owners publicity companies, blues society’s, and blues foundations. The majority of these companies are run by whites. Oh they may have one or two token blacks on their board but there is no way they could make a difference or make any type of change. From our incorporation date in 1985 until the present the same problem has continued but has deteriorated horribly. Did you know that there are only two blues society’s administered by African American’s in the entire world? They are the Bay Area Blues Society and the Bakersfield Blues Preservation Society.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the blues foundation will not ask me to become a board member. Why? Because I represent what is fair and I would push for Blues Foundation policy changes.

For the few African American’s on the Blues Foundation Board, if any, my plea is for you to try and become a Martin Luther King Jr or a Rosa Parks or a Mohammed Ali. Don’t just sit back and let the Blues Foundation come up with new ways to make money off of your birth right, The Blues.

What I saw while attending the IBC was that The Blues had replaced an 18th Century slave on the auction block for sale to the highest bidder. As I walked down Beale Street there were ticket sellers running up to people trying to sell admission tickets to each club. All that came to mind was; Blues for Sale, Blues for Sale, Blues for Sale (sounds like a record)!

How in the world can you call yourself a blues preservation organization when there is so much discrimination against the people who created this art form of musical expression! You sit back and look the other way when it comes to trying to help the African American musician get his just dues. This is a monumental problem that should be given top priority by your organization.

I am sure you can find some Uncle Tom, black musician, who will say that what I am saying is not totally true. Well I refuse to sing “I wish I was in Dixie”! If you cared anything about the black musician you wouldn’t allow the majority of the blues festivals in this country to continue to be 90% white. I’m sure that you think you have no control over what blues festivals in this country present. I disagree with you. You can make a change in a small way, you can require that an organization, blues society and/or blues festival presenter cannot join your Blues Foundation unless they present 50% African American blues in their programming. You must let Jim Crow fly away in the blues industry because you are keeping racism alive while killing the African American blues musician. I am not trying to say that all of the problems in the blues industry are your responsibility but I am saying that no blues organization gives a dam about the future and legacy of the black musician. This is very evident in the way most blues societies present their events. I have talked to almost every blues society in the country over the years. They all have the same old pat answer, “We don’t have a lot of money so we have to book the most popular blues acts. We have to book the act that is traveling through out town or City”. In my book that makes them a booking agency or blues promoter. As a blues society it is your duty to give the unsung heroes of the blues a venue and/or opportunity to perform.

Your Blues Foundation Affiliates and Members include many blues societies. Some of those blues society’s still use the “N” word when referring to black musicians. The fact is that when your eye is on the $$ green you can’t see the black! The discrimination that exists in the blues industry is the same discrimination that existed in other industries and companies that fueled the fire in Martin Luther King Jr. in starting the Montgomery Bus Strike.

My suggestion to the Director of the Blues Foundation is that you must start paying attention to saving the black musicians because this is our art form. Whether you want to or not, it is your responsibility as a blues presentation organization to present the true blues, to keep the true blues alive. At this point in time the black musicians are getting tired of sitting at the back of the bus. You can be seen as a “good ole boy southern blues organization” or as an organization in the south that your queue from the likes of Martin Luther King Jr or Rosa Parks teachings of being fair to all men and women.

I have listed a few suggested solutions below:

1. HOST A BLUES SUMMIT – Hold two, one in the north and one in the south. Invite Cornell West, Sterling Plump, Earl Crudup, Nat Dove, Billy Branch, Velma Landers, Nelson George, blues societies from across the country and internationally, club owners, booking agents, festival promoters, press, record companies, blues musicians and last but not least blues fans. This will be the first time in the history of blues music that everything is put on the table so that everyone can have their say. What a great way to try and save the art form of blues!!!

2. SET UP SPONSORSHIP PROGRAMS – To afford blues musicians the opportunity to attend the blues summit and other Blues Foundation programs such as the IBC.

3. SEND QUESTIONAIRE TO BLUES SOCIETIES – To all blues societies and affiliates asking them to book more African American musicians on their festivals and find out why they don’t book more African Americans.

4. SET UP AN AFRICAN AMERICAN BLUES REGISTRY – To distribute to blue societies across the nation and internationally a list of available African American blues bands.

5. REQUIRE MORE AFRICAN AMERICAN IBC JUDGES – Include more African Americans as IBC judges. Assist with airfare to Memphis. Don’t push out good judges because they do not have the monetary means to get to Memphis.

To all of the blues fans, blues musicians, blues festival promoters, journalists, blues society’s, blues chat sites, blues organizations, club owners, black leaders, NAACP, United Negro College Fund, Rainbow Coalition, Operation PUSH, Congressional Black Caucus, Congress of Racial Equality, Jet Magazine, Ebony Magazine, ACLU, Black Panther, Alpha Phi Alpha, Southern Christian Law Center, National Association of Black Journalist, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Black Women Organized for Educational Development, The Blues and R&B Music Foundation, Bakersfield Blues Preservation Society, Dr. Cornell West, Sterling Plump, Nelson George…..you need to know how the blues is being taken from the people who created it, the African American.

As an African American I am requesting help from organizations and people who care about what is fair and who is controlling this black musical art form called The Blues. As copies of this letter are sent to the scholars and watch dogs of the African American culture, I suggest you ask them what they think you’re doing to the state of The Blues? I’m sure they will see that what you are doing is Cultural Genocide. Yes, Genocide is a very powerful word. I’m sure you will totally disagree with me, but just take a look at what is really going on in the blues world. Don’t just look at it from a money making venture. I want you to see that African American musicians are on the bottom of the blues world. African American’s make less money, perform less, have less management opportunities, are treated like dogs, don’t receive as much blues radio air play or don’t receive the amount of sponsors as his or her white counterparts.

I am hoping this letter will bring much needed attention to the problems that face African American musicians. I am hoping people who read this letter will not just throw it down and say he is just playing the race card and continue to believe there is no problem in the blues industry. I am hoping that the people who read this don’t look at what I am saying as a disgruntled person in the blues industry. This letter is intended to bring a voice to so many blues greats who have passed on and to the few who are still left but are afraid to speak out because of reprisal. I don’t mind being the sacrificial lamb! The truth hurts. When it comes to the blues community, just like the rest of the nation, people don’t want to talk about the black and white issue. The time has come, NO….it is way past due and about time that someone stand up and make life a little bit better for the African Americans who created this musical art form called the Blues, — America’s only contribution to the world of culture!

Ronnie Stewart
Executive Director
Bay Area Blues Society