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Memphis musician helps bring blues to Baghdad

Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 04/10/2008 - 13:17

WASHINGTON -- They brought the blues to Baghdad, Memphis harmonica player Billy Gibson said Wednesday."Bluzapalooza," the first blues concert tour for the troops in Iraq and Kuwait, wrapped up and headed for home this week after what Gibson and tour manager Steve Simon said was a marvelous, if occasionally harrowing, time in the war zone.Reached by phone in Kuwait, Gibson, 39, said the highlight of the adventure was "just meeting the actual troops and seeing the looks on their faces as we got a chance to play music for them ... We brought that vibe to Iraq."Simon, a promoter from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said he had a tough job convincing the Army colonel to whom he pitched the idea of blues in Baghdad. "He said, 'You must be kidding. Nobody wants to go there.' But we did."The tour was one of about 150 acts that go out to play for the troops around the world, according to Melissa Welch of San Antonio, Texas-based Armed Forces Entertainment. The pop group LDNL, for example, is rocking Okinawa and Korea this month.Bluzapalooza played four concerts, including one in Kuwait, and jammed with soldiers who brought their instruments to the last show Monday night. That happened only after a brief intermission, as Simon explained."In the middle of the show, sirens went off and we all had to run out of this gymnasium into bunkers because this was a rocket attack. The rockets landed 200 meters from where we were. You felt the ground shake," he said.When the all clear was sounded, however, "We went back in and finished our show. It was surreal -- and real."In addition to Gibson, the 13-member tour included Bobby Rush and his band from Jackson, Miss.; singer Janiva Magness of Los Angeles; and Tony Braunagel and the Phantom Blues Band, also from L.A."At the end of the day, we had some of America's greatest blues artists saluting some of America's greatest troops," said Simon, 62. "This was the most marvelous, heartfelt, warm, special thing that any of us had ever done. There wasn't a dry eye amongst us."Gibson said he has already signed on to return in October.(Bartholomew Sullivan writes for The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn.)