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Blues Music Awards return to Memphis, celebrate 3-decade run. This was local news for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, again reporting on the renamed W.C. Handy awards night:

Soulful diva Janiva Magness, guitar great Buddy Guy and the legendary B.B. King were among the big winners at the 30th annual Blues Music Awards held Thursday night at Memphis Cook Convention Center.

Formerly known as the W.C. Handy Awards, the honors are staged by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation, and voted on by the organization's 3,000-plus members.

Here's the winners list at blues.org. Gotta love the names in this one: Best DVD: M For Mississippi: A Road Trip Through the Birthplace of the Blues - Broke & Hungry Records, Cathead Blues & Mudpuppy Recordings.

But the early buzz was about a nominee who didn't win. From Tupelo, Miss., the Homemade Jamz Blues Band was up for Best New Artist. They're Kyle, 14, Taya, 10, and Ryan Perry, 17. And, while there are lots of handheld-video clips of them at festivals on YouTube -- including Taya, at 7, drumming like a pro -- the sound is better in the cuts from their new album at that link -- their Myspace page -- and in this promo:

Not bad for a guitar made from a car muffler.

Here's Michele Norris at NPR: A Blues Family, Kicking Out Homemade Jamz.

Dad Renaud Perry was working as a police officer when he approached a local bluesman known as Jabbo.

"I know that if I go to this guy's house as just a regular person, he was going to say no," he says. "That is what I kept running into all the time. ... So, you know, I said, well, 'I'm on duty, I'll swing by there in my police car and my uniform.' And he was out cutting grass. We laugh about it today, but when he saw me pulled up, he said his mind got to racing, 'Man, what have I done?' "

Jabbo reluctantly allowed Ryan, then 12, to swing by and jam that weekend.

"They rocked that porch. I mean, they had that porch going in no time," Renaud Perry says. "And at the end of the session, that man looked at me and said, 'You know, this kid: I want to teach him everything I know.' "

In a sidebar, Michele writes that she took their CD home thinking from the cover art that her kids might like it.

"I popped in the CD while making rigatoni at the stove, thinking the kids could bop along as they worked on an art project at the kitchen table.

"From the first chord on the electric guitar, everyone in the kitchen bolted up to pay attention. This was blues music. Real blues music. The kind of stuff that B.B. King and Muddy Waters belt out in juke joints down in the Delta. The kids bopped at the kitchen table, all right. And so did the grandparents in the den. Frankly, I did a few two-steps myself while cooking at the stove.

"I decided I had to meet the three kids who make up the Homemade Jamz Blues Band, so we invited Ryan, Kyle and Taya Perry to visit our studios. I had the pleasure of watching the adults in the room go through the same jaw-dropping experience. Faces twisted. Eyebrows raised. Are these kids really playing this music? It was rich."

Thanks to my old friend Phil Polombo for the heads-up.

 Tags  Blues Foundation Blues Music Awards

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2 Comments

Peggy said:

Those kids are awesome!

Link | May 8, 2009 1:44 PM
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Beth said:

Hard to believe that cute little girl is a hot drummer. Whew!

Link | May 8, 2009 6:12 PM
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