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Decatur Blues Society had their first OPEN MIC NIGHT on November the 4th at the Cornerstone Tavern on South Side Drive in Decatur IL, and it was a Smash!

Check out our 1st Open Mic Photo's

The event was hosted by Reverend Robert, this guy can play and sing, he gave us all an outstanding performance! 

Steve "The Harp" made it down from Bloomington a Chicago Blues Harmonica player and he tore up the stage.

Hipbone Sam who's coined phrase "Let Me Hear Ya Say Yeah!" made an appearance along with Country Bruce Baise and they rocked the house!

We also had a band making it's first appearance which came to be known as the "the band with no name" early in the evening and will be known in the future as the "Down Home Blues". This band features one of the board members of the Decatur Blues Society, President Don Wright who is the lead singer and plays the harmonica. Also in the this band is John Even known locally as "Catfish" , he is a well known blues guitarist and music instructor. He has played in a lot of bands in the Midwest, lets just say that his name precedes himself. Then there's drummer Donnie Holeman and on the bass guitar David Night.

Another one of our board members joined in the fun.  He is our very own Marshall Sperry and is the Membership Director with the Decatur Blues Society. Marshall, Reverend Roberts, and new comer Noah Williams of
Decatur, a vocalist and acoustic guitar player joined in the "blues jam mix it up" with Steve "The Harp", HIPBONE SAM, Jim McNeely and the rest of the guys. They "blew the doors off of The Cornerstone Tavern" rounding out our first Open Mic Night, and made us all proud!

Neil Dresen owner of  Donnie's Pizza made an appearance with some of his friends. he played lead guitar,  Mike Tasch on the bass guitar, drummer Nick McNeely and his dad Jim McNeely on the saxophone, Jim is a well known saxophone player in this part of the country! As rumor has it that this father son talent has never played together before tonight! They sounded great! Chris Fisher rounded out their band on the percussion.

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                                                        2nd Blues Open Mic Night                            

                                It's time again for another Blues Jam Open Mic Night!
We had another blues jam open mic night on December 15th and it was a lot of fun! Our host was "Reverend Robert" who in 2004 took first place at the National Slide Guitar Festival in North Carolina The Reverend is known for his true conviction, and powerful delivery, and we are so lucky to have him in our 2nd jam session.

We heard from musicians from Decatur, Mattoon & Charleston. A local harmonica player joined in the fun, he's Dave Pierce also known as "HD", Eric Lutz also ripped a few notes out on his harmonica.

We also had two guy's from Bloomington IL "Rob Hagle & Brian Feldkamp" who had heard about out blues jam from NPR New's.

We want to thank everyone that stepped onto the stage to jam with us!!!

The "Down Home Blues Band" from right here in Decatur also made an appearance.

We again want to thank The Bourbon Barrel Bar & Grill located at 1355 N Illinois Route 48 # 7 in Decatur, IL for allowing us to spread the sounds of the blues throughout our area from their location.

The Bourbon Barrel Bar & Grill was very easy to work with and they will be a future host of another blues jam, for sure!

We also received some criticism about how our calender works and I feel like I need to pass this along to our other website readers.

Our calender is linked to Bloomington's Blues Society site which is provided to blues fans to use from all over the state. This site shows bookings on a daily basis and by clicking on the band that you want more information on, it links to that bands website.

You may have to scroll down their site to find out what time they are playing and at what location.

One of our audience members was unhappy with Kilborn Alley's site as it is incomplete after December 9th and thought we should have their schedule posted on our site.

Each blues band is responsible for the content that they post to their site and it would be impossible for us or "Blues Blowtorch Society"  to make a posting of every band that is playing in Central IL.

That being said we will continue to use the calendar from Bloomington's "Blues Blowtorch Society" so that we can keep all of our blues fans up to date with the latest information on blues music performances available in our state.

                                    We are always looking for different host bands,                                                                     so let us know if your interested! 217-620-3020