Letters from the week of May 18…

by

The president of the PBPS says thank you to volunteers and YES!

Thank you! For coming out to the 19th Annual Carolina Blues Festival. We sold more advance tickets for this event than we had in years. The crowd was great. You made it happen! We can’t thank you enough. All of us had a great time Saturday. Today we’re sore, tired (and maybe a little hung over) but it was worth it. We are happy to do it.

Thanks to all our incredible volunteers, especially Doug Mokaren, Chris Roulhac, Emily Edwards, and everyone who kept the beverages flowing. Thanks to the Page High School Playmakers who did an excellent job on trash duty. It was a dirty job and they did it well. Thanks to Holly Burdick and her daughters, Michelle Neidziella and above all my wife Julie for all the help at the Kids Area. And to every one of our volunteers: thank you.

Thank you Lee Mortensen for being my right hand person as Festival Co-Chair, Jeff Farran for his keen mind in setup, Mark Rebeck for keeping the stage running smoothly (and also thanks to our intrepid stage manager Bill Moore), Trudy Roth and her crew for the backstage, SG Kearney for the sound, Tony Welborne for coordinating volunteers, Linda Parker for the Kids Area, Casey Hazelman and family for the Souvie Shack, Hugh Otterburn for scrip, John ‘The Doctor of Stealth’ Hill for security, Ralph Speas for videography, Spencer Andrews for digital photography and wine, Joya Wesley for the Meet the Artist Table, Anne Wilson and her crew for accounting, Jeff Parrish for the great work with the food vendors, and everyone else on the PBPS Board (please forgive me if I left anyone out; a full volunteer thank you will appear on our website soon).

Thanks to Pat Freitag for helping us land our headliners, The Holmes Brothers. Thank you, Wendell, Sherman and Popsy! Thanks to Kenny Neal, Michael Burks, John Dee Holeman and the Matt Hill Blues Band (congrats, Chuck Cotton, Keeping The Blues Alive Winner for 2005). All the bands were fabulous. Thanks to the staff at Center City Park, and Grassroots. Thanks to all our great sponsors: YES! Weekly, Rock 92, Smith Stokes, WNAA, Miller Brewing Company, Craft Insurance, The Weaver Foundation, and Smorbord Design. Special thanks to Loring Mortensen for his brilliant design of our poster and T-shirt.

Thanks to the radio personalities who emceed the show: Chris Demm, Brad Hines and Marcia Gan from Rock 92 and ‘Wild Irish Rose’ from WNAA.

Above all, thanks to you to for coming out and making this a very successful festival.

We’ll have some preliminary numbers in a day or two. In the meantime, we want feedback from you. Did you enjoy the show? Did you encounter any problems that we need to address for next year? Let us know: e-mail us at jamberg@mindspring.com. Keep in mind that this is the last year for this show at Center City Park, and we’ll be looking for a new home in 2006. The city is renovating the park and it will not be possible for us to have a tent there in 2006.

Thanks again for helping us keep the blues alive and to keep the PBPS going. We love you all.

Peace, love and blues to ya,

John Amberg

President, Piedmont Blues Preservation Society