Regional IBC, November 2010
Facts
- Zac Harmon and the Mid-South Blues Revue, sponsored by the Southern California Blues Society, won "Best Unsigned Band" at the 2004 International Blues Challenge in Memphis (Wikipedia: Zac Harmon; International Blues Challenge).
- The IBC's judging rubric (Blues Content, Originality, Vocals, Instrumental Talent, Stage Presence, each scored 1-10 by a three-judge panel) was the standard format used by affiliate societies' regional qualifiers (Blues Foundation official rules).
- Local blues-society IBC qualifiers were sponsor-run events; an act had to be sent by an affiliate society and could not enter the Memphis finals independently (Blues Foundation official rules).
This page is the opening installment of a photo gallery the original scbsevents.org site ran after a Regional IBC qualifying round in November 2010. Here is what this kind of local blues-society event represented.
By 2010, the Southern California Blues Society had already sent at least one act on to real success at the national level: Zac Harmon and the Mid-South Blues Revue, sponsored by SCBS, had won the IBC's "Best Unsigned Band" award back in 2004, a win Harmon later said was worth well over a hundred thousand dollars in publicity and bookings. That track record is the kind of thing a regional blues society would want to build on year after year, and an annual November qualifying round, feeding into the following January's IBC finals in Memphis, was the mechanism for doing it.
These regional rounds were typically modest affairs by design: a handful of local bar bands and semi-professional acts playing short sets, in front of a panel of three judges scoring on the IBC's five standard categories, for an audience that was as likely to be other local musicians and blues-society members as paying ticket holders. They were community events first and competitions second.
Zac Harmon's 2004 win is worth dwelling on a little further, since it is the clearest proof that this regional pipeline actually worked for a Southern California act. Harmon, a Mississippi-born guitarist and songwriter who had spent years as a session player and producer in Los Angeles before stepping out as a bandleader, used the IBC title to relaunch himself as a touring blues artist, eventually earning a Blues Music Award nomination of his own later in his career. For a regional society like SCBS, having a concrete, nationally recognized success story like Harmon's gave its annual qualifying round, whatever shape this particular November 2010 edition took, real credibility with the local musicians it was trying to attract.
For the surviving photo index from this archive, see photos; for the prior year's qualifying round, see Regional IBC, November 2009: Part 2; and for the gallery's continuation, see Regional IBC, November 2010: Part 2.
