Washington Blues Society Awards Show

Sunday night Joanna and I attended the Washington Blues Society Awards Show.

It was held at the Triple Door. This is our first visit to that venue. It is really nice supper club set up strictly for music with a super sound system. It is similar to Dimitriou's Jazz Alley. They book mid level artists such as Michelle Ndegeocello, Kinky Friedman and Maria Muldaur in additional to lesser known local acts.

The food comes from Wild Ginger, a Tom Douglas restaurant next door that has been voted favorite restaurant in Seattle a number of times. Joanna had Shrimp Pad Thai and i had Duck with Plum Sauce, their signature dish. The food was seriously good. It might be worth checking out the website of the Triple Door, which includes the menu from Wild Ginger.

The awards show was favorably professional for being put on by a Blues Society. A little loose, but a lot of fun. The presentation of the awards was done by local musicians. They picked the right ones, as most of them were pretty witty. The presenters knew and had played with just about all of the nominees, so they had plenty of background to share and keep it interesting.

Winner of Entertainer of the Year was Lee Oskar, the harmonica maestro. He usually plays the last Saturday of each month at Hwy 99, a blues club a short walk from the Ferry Terminal and the Sound. We are looking forward to catching him at our next opportunity.

We listened to two of the local bands that played. Definitely a few notches above typical bar band blues. Really solid blues, played better than you normally hear. There is an active blues scene here with some seriously good players and singers. Joanna and I are looking forward to getting out on a regular basis and learning who our favorites are.

We visited with a guy named Jesse James that has been booking blues bands for Biker events and small festivals for a number of years. He is a very interesting guy who knows who all the players/bookers/journalists are. He was very generous in spending time with me to give me a feel for who was who. Chances are good we will be running into him and his lady friend Jill in the future.

One final observation about people attending blues shows. 35 - 40 years ago almost everyone was drunk. At today's shows, almost everybody is sober. That, along with no smoking in venues makes going to shows one hell of a lot better new than it was back then.

Enjoy!

Jim