Board Members of the Atlanta Blues Society accepting the Keeping the Blues Alive Award at the luncheon during the IBC in Memphis TN. L to R: Richard L’Hommedeau, Carlin Smith, George Klein, Barb Hilke, Deb Pruitt, Dave Black.

The Atlanta Blues Society is very proud to announce that we are the recipients of the Keeping the Blues Alive Award for 2019. The Award was presented during the KBA Luncheon on Friday January 25, 2019 during the IBC Week in Memphis.

Each year, The Blues Foundation presents the Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Awards to individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the Blues world. The Blues Foundation will present the 2020 KBA Awards during a recognition lunch Friday, January 31, 2020 in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The KBA ceremony will be part of the International Blues Challenge (IBC) weekend of events.  The 2020 IBC dates are January 28 – February 1.

Unlike the Blues Music Awards, the award recognizing the past year’s best in recordings and performance voted on by thousands of The Blues Foundation’s members, the KBAs are awarded to non-performers strictly on the basis of merit by a select panel of Blues professionals. Noted educator, author, journalist, and KBA Chairman Art Tipaldi notes “The KBA may be awarded for the recipient’s work in the past year but most often reflects a lifetime of work; we don’t view the recipient as the winner of a ‘best of the year’ category. Consistent with this philosophy, the committee generally refrains from awarding the KBA to an individual or organization more than once. Rather, we select a new deserving winner each year, except in rare cases when a significant period of time has elapsed since the first award.”
https://blues.org/keeping-the-blues-alive-award/