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What a blast! Soul Shine 2011 was an incredible night! Thank you to everyone who attended and helped make this year’s festival a night to remember. We had more than 450 people show up and with your generous support we raised almost $17,000 for First Step Healthy Family Resource Center! Congratulations to all our top hat raffle winners and especially to Doug Pahl of Fostoria as this year’s guitar raffle winner! From fantastic food to amazing blues music it was a sensational event. Once we have all our photos ready, we will be sure to post them. In the meantime, check out Tim Troutner Photography for a preview.

On Saturday, September 24th head to Meadowbrook Park Ballroom in Bascom, OH for a great night of blues music, BBQ, and dancing. The 16th Annual Soul Shine Blues Festival will feature the music of John Primer, Ray Fuller & The Bluesrockers, Reece Lincoln Band, The Soul Shine Blues Band, and Rude Mood. There will be plenty of BBQ chicken and ribs, pulled pork sandwiches and seafood jambalaya to eat as well as a top hat raffle where you can win all sorts of great prizes. The Soul Shine Blues Festival is an annual fundraiser for First Step Healthy Family Resource Center. You can stop by First Step before the event to purchase tickets or buy them at the door the day of the event. Don’t miss out on the best annual blues festival in northwest Ohio!

Soul Shine 2010 was a fantastic event. Thank you to everyone who attended, sponsors, and the Soul Shine Committee!
Enjoy the photos.

First Step extends a huge thank you to everyone that helped to make the 14th Annual Soul Shine Blues Festival a success! Sponsors, Friends of the Festival, Committee, Board, and Guests, every contribution makes a difference in the work of First Step. Check out photos from this year’s festival on our Media page. Contact us it you would like to help plan Soul Shine 2010. See you then!

The 14th annual Soul Shine Blues Festival is proud to welcome Graná Louise and Henry Gray to this year’s stage. Also performing will be 2007 International Blues Challenge winner, Sean Carney. The festival takes place 2-8:30 p.m. Sept. 26, rain or shine in the Meadowbrook Park Ballroom, Bascom, Ohio.

Soul Shine will also feature the music of the Soul Shine Blues Band as the opening act. Admission for this year’s festival is $20 and tickets are available before the festival or at the gate. Soul Shine will also feature its signature Southern cooking, raffle items, and our theme basket silent auction.

Henry Gray has been playing piano for over seven decades, recorded with Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Little Milton, Jr. Wells, Lazy Lester, and has more than 58 albums to his credit. He held down the piano stool in Howlin’ Wolf’s band from 1956 till 1968, and been credited as helping to create that distinctive Chicago blues piano sound. Returning to Louisiana in ‘68, he became part of the swamp boogie scene. In recent years he’s received four W. C.Handy nominations, and been awarded the National Heritage Fellowship Award by the National Endowment of the Arts. He’s been a fixture at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals for the past 30 years.

Sass with Class!  Straight from the heart of Chicago, Graná Louise encompasses the Blues. She is simply hands-down, the quintessential female voice of Chicago Blues. Graná Louise’s show brims with all the elements that make a performer great! Her deep-throaty-broad- rich voice, belts out the kind of raw gut Blues that makes your spine tingle and heart and body ache. Her impeccable timing and staging is keen, spiced with ribald fun and pizzazz that gives audiences a show to remember! Her background in professional theater and dance, lends itself wonderfully to her act.

Graná Louise is a regular act at Chicago’s hottest Blues Club’s, including Blue Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends, Andy’s Jazz Club, Shaw’s Crab House, Redfish, KoKo Taylor’s Celebrity, B.L.U.E.S on Halsted Street, and Kingston Mines.

Winner in 2007 of the International Blues Challenge, Albert King Award, and “Best Band in Columbus” according to Columbus Monthly, Sean Carney continues to create, produce, and advocate for great blues music. As stated in Blues Revue Magazine, “A one-man ambassador for the blues, Sean Carney has brought his music to such far flung locales as France, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. He has served three terms as President of the Columbus Ohio Blues Alliance, and he promotes concerts as musical director of the Island Arts Foundation in Ft. Myers Beach, Florida. He plays a mean hollow-bodied guitar, too.”