Urban Unrest

29 November 2007 | Pacifica | Ernesto Aguilar

Organizers hope Blues Festival will continue

By Mark Collette
The Galveston Daily News

Published November 24, 2007

TEXAS CITY — The people behind the Charles Brown Day of Remembrance Blues Festival said that after talking with city officials, they’re optimistic that the event will continue and even branch out next year.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be purely a blues festival,” said James Nagel, “the Blueshound” of Pacifica Radio station 90.1 FM in Houston. “It will probably be the ‘Charles Brown Music Festival’ … Some people said they want more zydeco. We’ll still have strong blues roots in keeping with the Charles Brown tradition.”

Brown, born in Texas City in the early 1920s, rocketed to stardom after moving to the west coast and hooking up with Johnny Moore and the Three Blazers. His career fizzled in the 1950s after rock n’ roll trumped his smooth, “cocktail blues” style for young listeners. But he had a late comeback after touring with Bonnie Raitt in the 1990s, and he was inducted posthumously into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

His accomplishments went largely unacknowledged in his hometown until the Nov. 3 festival, spearheaded by Nagel, a Texas City postal worker, and city attorney Bobby Gervais.

They estimate the free, daylong festival drew about 3,000 people, with about 2,500 watching headliner Marcia Ball.

Nagel said city staff has already asked him to begin looking at bands for next year, and Gervais said a major goal is to keep it free, but without the city bearing the entire cost.

The city’s cultural arts board spent $65,000 of hotel-motel tax revenues.

Nagel said he is seeking sponsorships from the private sector.

There’s still no word on whether Texas City will eventually have a repository for Brown memorabilia, some of which has found a home at Prairie View A&M University, where Brown got his degree in chemistry.

But, if the festival’s organizers have their way, the music will live on here.

“The blues is a type of music that it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, rich or poor, black or white,” Nagel said. “Everybody’s gonna have hard times at some point in their life, and it’s something that we can all come together and share common ground on.”

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