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Nobody can tell you how the blues feel unless they have the blues. We all take it differently.

- Otis Rush

Shawn Kellerman Live at Creekside Bar & Grill, August 20

Shawn Kellerman

Blues guitar wizard Shawn Kellerman will perform at the Creekside Bar & Grill on Wednesday, August 20 at 7 p.m. The show is presented by friends of the Mississippi Valley Blues Society and proceeds will benefit the MVBS in their efforts to overcome the negative financial impact of this year's flood so they will be able to present the 25th annual IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival next year. Cover charge will be $5. The Creekside Bar & Grill is located at 3303 Brady Street in Davenport, IA.

Shawn Kellerman hails from Kitchener, Ontario, where his father owned a blues club. It was there, at one unforgettable show after another, that Kellerman’s musical roots were firmly planted in the blues and he began to develop his exceptional technical skills on the guitar. Further cementing his roots in the blues was Kellermen’s pilgrimage to Mississippi, where he spent a couple years playing the Chitlin’ Circuit. He has played and toured with such notable blues artists as Mel Brown, Deborah Coleman and Bobby Rush. Kellerman played dobro on Bobby Rush’s 2007 acoustic release Raw.

Michael Hawkeye Herman

With Portland’s Bayfront Blues Festival under his belt, accolades from Blues Sur Seine in Paris, and just arrived from the Grafton (Wisconsin) Blues Festival, which he helped to found, Quad-City native Michael “Hawkeye” Herman will present a benefit concert for the Mississippi Valley Blues Society at the Redstone Room in Davenport on Tuesday, September 23. The music starts at 7:30, and admission is $10 for this special show by Hawkeye Herman and friends.

“I heard about the MVBS needing funds in order to have a 25^th anniversary Fest in 2009, and I saw something I could do to help,” Hawkeye says. He is donating his music free of charge to the MVBS, and the RME is donating the space of the Redstone Room to help the Blues Society in its efforts to raise $100,000.

Chris Avey

Congratulations to The Avey Brothers for winning the 2008 Iowa Blues Challenge, held Saturday, May 17 at the Hotel Fort Des Moines. This Quad Cities band consists of Chris Avey on guitar and vocals, Mark Avey on bass, Bryan West on drums and Chris Ryan on harmonica. Formerly collaborating in the Twin Towers Band and rock band Blue Ash Ink, Chris and Mark Avey have been a fixture on the Quad Cities music scene for the past ten years or so. While Chris was off in Phoenix playing lead guitar with the Big Pete Pearson Band, Mark had a successful stint playing bass with the Mercury Brothers, who also won the Iowa Blues Challenge and made it to the finals of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, which is a significant feat in itself.