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Heritage Blues Orchestra, Augusta Chronicle, Renee Williams

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"Blues is the roots, and everything else is the fruits,"songstress and storyteller, Chaney Sims recalls her Father repeating.

"All of my experiences are food for the blues and for the songs that I sing, write and interpret. I realized all the great artists that I grew up listening to were just telling their story, so I began to tell my story through music too," says Sims. “Last month we played Monterey International’s APAP showcase at B.B. King’s in Manhattan and I performed a cover of the classic St. James Infirmary with my Dad. My Mom was in the audience and after I got off stage, she asked me where I had to go to get to that place to sing about losing someone I loved. I told her that it is in every broken heart that I have ever had, every beautiful sunset, and in every rainy day."

New York City's Heritage Blues Orchestra (HBO) will perform at The Imperial on March 20. The band's stylistic origins include a fusion of traditional African American work songs, blues, and spirituals. The band’s debut release And Still I Rise was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Blues Album. Bill Sims, Jr. plays guitar along side his daughter in the nine-piece ensemble. Mr. Sims is an internationally respected master of the blues whose film credits include Cadillac Records, American Gangster, and a PBS documentary entitled An American Love Story. Collectively, HBO has worked with associated acts Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Robert Randolph, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, and Earth, Wind, and Fire.

During the 1920s, it was classic urban and vaudeville blues singers like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith who began spreading the popularity of the blues and paving the way for a future generation of female blues singers.

Before the blues was recognized as a clearly defined genre, it was the secular counterpart to African American spiritual music. Blues singers frequently voiced their personal woes concerning societal oppression and used blues music to recount their experiences.

"The blues and spirituals are both about getting to the other side and includes all ideas of freedom being conceptualized,” Sims explains. “The blues is like a huge umbrella and the blues and spirituals are like cousins holding hands. Church was one of the first places people could go to share stories and perform in front of an audience so the secular and non secular was combined. It became part of the fabric of everyday life. Blues music and spirituals can coexist and influence one another.”

During World War II, blues music opened up to a larger audience to include more white listeners. Audiences could experience blues performances at nightclubs like the Cotton Club in New York and in juke joints along Beale Street in Memphis.

“After the 60s, we lost quality control of the blues...Other people with no connection to African American culture began to choose who would be the major players in the blues," guitarist, Bill Sims, Jr. tells Michalis Limnios with Blues. Gr. Sims continues, “African Americans do not learn the blues...We learn to play an instrument. We learn to play guitar, piano, or a song...The blues is part of our life so we don’t need to learn that...I was born into the blues."

HBO continues in the tradition of sharing the history of their life and the life of their ancestors with their album And Still I Rise. “I really want to provide a broader spectrum of the blues, especially for younger people. The blues are not to be forgotten nor meant to go away. This music is not only an integral part of our country, but it also shows a timeline of the African American community as well."

And Still I Rise pays homage to Maya Angelou’s poem of the same name. “The album is made up of all these songs that we love,” says Sims. “These are traditional songs and we really wanted to pay homage because this is something we all share. The blues is not only the foundation of American popular music, but the blues shares a history of a very particular type. We wanted to highlight all of that. That is what Maya Angelou's poem is all about. You can hide my history, you can say things that are not necessarily true and try to beat me in to submission, but I will still rise. I will share my story and hold my own space."

Heritage Blues Orchestra is Chaney Sims, Bill Sims, Jr., Junior Mack, Bruno Wilhelm, Vincent Butcher, and Kenny “Beedy-Eyes” Smith.

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