Kentuckiana Blues Society

Incorporated in 1989, the Kentuckiana Blues Society (KBS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to preserving, promoting, and perpetuating the Blues tradition. The KBS is an affiliate member of the Blues Foundation, and one of the oldest continuously operating blues societies in the country. Our members receive our monthly newsletter, The Blues News, as well as a weekly email calendar; we also email news of any late breaking events and appearances.

Members of the KBS played a key role in launching the Garvin Gate Blues Festival in 1988, and in 2010, the Germantown Schnitzelburg Blues Festival. Both are free to the public and unite our community through music presented by local and national artists. In addition, the KBS collaborates with other organizations to sponsor and support most of our local and regional blues festivals. 

The annual KBS Blues Challenge is a qualifying round of the Blues Foundation's prestigious International Blues Challenge, held annually on legendary Beale Street in Memphis, TN. The competition, typically held in late summer at Stevie Ray's Blues Bar, includes categories for Bands, Solo/Duo acts, and Youth performers, and the winners are presented with a prize package including premium recording time and funds for travel expenses. There is also a non-performance category for Best Self-Produced CD, and the winner is announced at the International Blues Challenge.

This will be the first year the KBS has been involved with Give for Good Louisville and funds collected on September 10 will be used exclusively for creating a mural of Louisville native and blues pioneer Sylvester Weaver.

Louisville native Sylvester Weaver (July 25, 1896 – April 4, 1960) was an American blues guitar player and a pioneer of country blues. He honed his guitar skills playing as a solo artist and in jug bands around Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood. Weaver recorded "Longing for Daddy Blues" and "I've Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind" with blues singer and fellow Louisvillian Sara Martin on October 24, 1923 in New York City. This was the first time that a blues singer was backed by only a guitar. It was a radical innovation from earlier recording techniques because women vocalists previously had jazz bands accompany them. This successful combination of Martin and Weaver lead to many recording sessions together. Two weeks later as a soloist, Weaver recorded "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag" the first blues guitar instrumentals. Both recordings were released on the Okeh Records label. They are also considered the first recorded country blues and the first known recordings of a bottleneck-style slide guitar. Weaver used a knife as a slide while picking the strings with his other hand. "Guitar Rag" became a blues classic and a cover version recorded by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in the 1930's as "Steel Guitar Rag" became a country music standard.

Weaver recorded approximately 50 additional songs and was sometimes accompanied by Walter Beasley and the singer Helen Humes, two more Louisville natives. He retired from music in 1927 and went back to Louisville, where he supported himself and his wife with various jobs including porter, packer, janitor and chauffeur. He passed away from cancer at the age of 64. A complete collection of his recordings was released on two CDs in 1992. In the same year, his unmarked grave received a headstone courtesy of the KBS and a new, larger headstone was erected in 2015. Since 1989, the blues society has presented its Sylvester Weaver Award annually to honor those who have worked to “preserve, promote and perpetuate the blues.”