Shorelines – Jacksonville Times-Union March 29, 2006  

Music Students Hearing Blues

Fletcher brings in a pro to sing

By Maggie Fitzroy/Shorelines Staff Writer 

     They learned that blues music was born in the Delta region of Mississippi about 100 years ago as a music of oppression, as a way to express “feeling bad”.

     They learned that the blues crosses racial lines, that many musicians, black and white, came from humble beginnings in the South. And the learned that Elvis Presley started his career “singing the blues”.

     “Anybody got the blues?” Roger “Hurricane” Wilson asked the Fletcher High School students who came to hear him play and sing Monday morning in the school’s auditorium. “You got the back to school blues?” On their first day back from spring break, band and choral students attended a special Blues in the Schools assembly featuring Wilson, one of the musicians who will be playing this weekend, Friday through Sunday, at the George’s Music Springing the Blues Festival at the SeaWalk Pavilion in Jacksonville Beach.

     Band Director Jonathan Maerki  said the school blues program is a tradition at Fletcher middle and high schools in the week before the popular, free festival.

     Maerki said he teaches his band and guitar students a variety of musicial styles, including the blues.

     Wilson began with a song called Big Boss Man, popularized by Jimmy Reed, a bluesman from Mississippi who took his music to Chicago. The jaunty strains of Wilson’s guitar and lyrics including, “I’m going to find me a boss ma, one who will treat me right,” brought cheers and an ovation from the students.Then he gave the kids a short lesson and demonstration on the different kinds of blues: Delta and Piedmont.

     Delta Blues came from African rhythms, from slave hollering in the fields, Wilson said. He said the Piedmont style is lighter, and he demonstrated, strumming the strings how he keeps rhythm through the song.

     He sang a song that he wrote in the memory of a good friend and fellow blues artist. He also sang, Hoochie Coochie Man, which Willie Dixon wrote for a fellow well-known bluesman, Muddy Waters.

     Wilson, born in 1953, has been playing the blues since he was young. Growing up in a small town on the New Jersey shore, he took his first guitar lesson at age 9.

     He has 6 CD’s on the market and has shared the stage with artists such as B.B. King, Taj Mahal, and Roomful of Blues. Wilson, who lives in Atlanta, will perform a pre-festival show at 7p.m. Thursday at the European Street Café and all three days at the festival, which begins Friday at 5p.m. and runs through Sunday. The ocean-front event will feature many renowned blues performers with the goal of celebrating America’s musical art form and promote support of the arts.

     Fletcher senior Justin Peterson, who plays baritone sax in the school’s band, said he attended the festival last year and enjoyed it. He said he likes to play blues and rock and roll.

     “Blues is expressive,” he said. “No limits.” He said that while playing the blues, you can create as you play along.

     Cody Brechler, who plays clarinet, said he has never played the blues, “but its pretty cool.”

     Jenna Kattreh, who plays piano and guitar, went up to Wilson after the Monday show to thank him for coming and tell him how much she enjoyed his performance. “I thought he was really good,” she said. “I wish I could play like that.”