The Madison Blue Society began in 1994 and was very active sponsoring blue shows, blues
in the schools, library purchases, blues calendars, and even blues fish fries, Rob.
After dropping off by the turn of the century, the Madison Blue Society started to rise
up again in 2003 and has remained active since.
Here to tell us about the Madison Blue Society, what's happening and how people can become
involved is lifetime members, Sherry Davis, along with the current president, Steve Porter.
Steve, Sherry, welcome to Maxine Gradyo.
Thanks, Wacker.
Good to be here.
And Sherry, you are the namesake of Sherry Davis and the conniptions.
Tell us a little bit about your backstory and your experience in the music scene over
the years.
Okay, while I lived in Madison, I moved here from the Dels and I lived in Madison for
like 40 years and for most of those, actually a little more than 40 years.
Anyway, for about 40 of those years, I performed in various bands, the most recent being the
Hot Damn Blues Band.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
The Hot Damn Blues Band.
You played a million shows.
I used to see your name and face on posters like everywhere and that was mostly Sherry Davis
and the conniptions.
I really remember.
That was like a big band, wasn't it?
It was a large band.
Yeah, I was like seven piece band or yeah, three women in front and no, no, no, no.
The conniptions was not.
The conniptions, we played a lot.
We had two women up front for a while.
So tell me about your involvement in the Madison Blue Society.
How long have you been hanging out with those cats?
Since 2003 and I've been on the board for most of those years, all but maybe three and
I was president for, I don't know, seven or eight years.
Sherry for a couple years, a member at large for a couple years and I'm still an active
member.
I'm just not on the board anymore.
I'm done with that.
And what do you love about the blues?
Oh, what do I love about the blues?
It moves me and it's real.
It speaks to me and I feel like it's a way I can express myself musically.
Steve Porter, you're the current president of the Madison Blue Society's, but you've
been jamming around the area since the 60s and recently with bands like Blythe Gamble
and Tony Diakite and the Afro Funk All Stars.
Tell us about your musical journey.
Sure.
I was one of those middle school students that was in ninth grade when the Beatles came
over.
Of course, we had to start a band right away and we played in the 60s and we kind of
took off.
We were booked by Ken Adamani and had a production company, cut a couple of 45s up at Cooke
Records and towards the end of our stint by about 66, 67, we started getting into this
thing called the Blues and it was really exciting us and that's what started my love with
the Blues.
Unfortunately, the band broke up as soon as we graduated from high school and I didn't
play for 25 years.
I finally started playing again in the early 90s and then have had a chance recently to
be playing with Blythe for a few years before COVID knocked that out and then I'm playing
in a boogie band called the BA Band with Beth Miller funding it.
At this point, we just recorded with Kenny Kepler at his studio and the last Friday of
every month, I get together with Tony Diakate and we play at the Coda so we have a good
time to play hand drums with him.
Now after the 25-year void of not playing, what brought you back?
They decided they were going to put on children's musicals and they needed an adult orchestra
and that's it.
I played drums and I started playing again and the next thing I knew I was going out
with the Blues jams.
It sucked me right back in and I'm a better drummer now than I ever was.
And actually, I think that's where I met you was taking lessons with Joey Banks.
Yeah.
A familiar face here on the show.
So tell us a little more about the Madison Blues Society, the Michigan and why you guys
are both involved.
What is the Madison Blues Society?
The Blues Society is a vehicle for people to support local blues and by that, I mean
both musical events, musical performers and just spreading the word on the Blues to the
younger generation to the public in general through contributions to the Madison Public
Library and schools and things of that nature to get material on the Blues recordings and
books out to the library and to the public.
Sherry can probably tell you a little more about some of those activities over the years.
Oh, well, should I start by saying our mission statement?
Yeah, what is your mission?
The Madison Blues Society is dedicated to increasing awareness, understanding and appreciation
of Blues music in America's musical heritage.
We work to expand the presence and vitality of the Blues in the Madison area through
promotional events, educational programs and strengthening links between the community
and local musicians.
That's our mission.
Wow.
What a great mission.
It is.
Yeah.
And you guys have quite a bit of racial equality built in and tell us about the racial equality,
your diversity and the membership and your meetings.
Okay.
We do have a racial equality statement which says the Madison Blues Society is proud to
support the goals of Black Lives Matter as well as other nonviolent organizations that
address racial inequalities and injustice.
The Madison Blues Society commits to racial justice and reform.
Music and specifically Blues is an effective means of supporting these goals as Blues has
a strong foundation of representing the historical challenges that racial injustice brings.
That's our statement about that.
Well, I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you, you know, why the Blues are important,
but I think that statement just said it all.
Right.
Right.
Absolutely.
So to become a member, how would I become a member and most importantly rocker, how many
meetings do I have to attend?
As a member, you're not required to attend meetings, but you are welcome to attend meetings
as our non-members.
Members are sent a monthly invitation saying when the meeting will be meetings, by the way,
are the second Monday of every month.
And let's see, and the board meetings are both in person and virtually via Zoom, so you
have that option.
Sure.
Come on, member.
You go to...
By drinking the Blues, right?
Oh, just drinking the Blues.
There's like a special violin.
My name is Rob, and I'm a Blues, a holy website.
You can, you can, you can, you can join on the website.
www.MadisonBlueSociety.org, and there's a place where you can join there, you just click
on, become a member.
Or you can attend one of our events, and there are opportunities to join there, and if
you join there, you get a gratuitous CD, a Blues CD for joining.
Now, you guys used to do over at Warner Park in Madison, right?
The Blues Society Festival, or...
Well, it was called the Blues picnic back then, because the annual Blues picnic, it
usually happened over the weekend of the Solstice, or the one closest to it, in June.
And that went on for, it started in 2003, and went on through 2018, I think that was
the last one we had.
Oh, wow.
But we have been putting on, since COVID kind of shut things down for a while, but we've
been starting to ramp back up.
Thinking about having it back?
Yeah, well, we, a year ago, we put on a half day Blues event at the East Side Club
in the back, in the yard, in the back, on the lake.
And last year, we did two Blues events on each on a Thursday night.
Unfortunately, we picked on one of those nights the hottest night of the summer, and the
second, and we had the cash box kings on the night where all of the smoke was so bad that
nobody wanted to be outside, so we had everybody had to come in.
And then on the hottest night, we had the Blues Disciples, and everybody had to come in.
So it kind of hurt the attendance.
We're hoping to do a little better this year with some event events that will attract
Blues lovers in the community.
As far as the Blues picnic coming back, that's not going to happen.
I don't think so.
This is a different event Steve's talking about.
And the Blues picnic, we had multiple bands.
We had like five or six sometimes, and we had the Blues kids performed.
They would come in and Joe Nosec of the cash box kings in Oscar Wilson would teach
them harmonica.
Wow.
And then, yeah, a whole bunch of kids, and they'd have like six or eight weeks of lessons,
and then they would perform in the middle of the day at the Blues picnic, and they were
a real popular thing there.
But the Blues picnic was always free.
And our events now, we don't really have the kind of money these days to put on a big
huge free event.
So there is a ticket.
I see.
For the current events, but very affordable.
Yeah.
Now, I remember the Blues picnic going to see my good friend, Bearhaust Chuck, and he played
there one year, and he was just fabulous.
We miss him.
Madison Blue Society has new board of directors.
What's on the agenda for the future of the Madison Blue Society?
Well, we meet once a month, and we plan that, and we welcome input from the community.
I suppose the big events are to plan music events, but we also plan how to allocate funds.
I mean, we do have a budget that allows us, as I said, to contribute hundreds of dollars
to the Madison Public Library and to some of school events.
And we also support Blues festivals around the state.
We have supported festivals that Jimmy Vegley's been behind.
We have Alvin Lee Blues Festival and various, all over the Wisconsin, actually, the whole
state.
It doesn't have to be that local.
So we come together and figure out just where we can be most effective at promoting the
Blues.
And the Brian Lee Festival.
Or Brian, I do want to say Alvin Lee.
Alvin Lee.
Alvin Lee.
I know.
I was like, well, I don't know.
This is Alvin Lee's festival.
Now, Brian Lee, he used to play here in Madison as from Wisconsin, but he was kind of
known and then got big in New Orleans.
Yeah.
So I saw him a couple.
I saw him at the great dean of all places one time, really special show.
He was a very special guitar player and artist.
If our listeners want more information about becoming a member, what was your website
once again?
www.MadisonBlueSociety.org.
And you can email us at info at MadisonBlueSociety.com and you're on Facebook.
Yeah.
We're on Facebook.
I don't know the Facebook address.
I don't have that.
Madison just said it.
Exactly.
Madison.
It doesn't say Madison BlueSociety.
I'm not sure what it is.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
It's like Madison Blues or.
But I'm on Facebook.
If I want to go there, I just type in Madison BlueSociety and it takes me there.
You'll take it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You'll find it if you want it.
Hey, Steve Sherry, thanks so much for coming in to speak with us tonight.
I'm Max and Gradio.
We really appreciate it.
We're really happy to hear about the BlueSociety and we're glad that you're keeping that going.
Thank you very much, Rocker.
What do we got right now, some blind gambles, Rob?
Yes, we do right here on Max and Gradio.