Please come out to our Gulfsongs shows!

A lot of my time over the past month has been taken up helping to organize Gulfsongs Oregon. I've mentioned it a couple of times on the blog, but I wanted to give you more information about it and tell you about three shows that kick off this music series this week. Please feel free to forward this on ... or the link to the blog. 

Over the next 10 weeks, Oregonians will have the opportunity to assist our neighbors in Louisiana who are being impacted by the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico ... and hear some of the best music Portland has to offer in the process. Gulfsongs Oregon is a music performance series that will raise money to benefit selected non-profit organizations actively involved in oil spill recovery and assistance.  This effort is about helping people in the parishes of south Louisiana who are being directly affected economically.

Thursday kicks off the series at the White Eagle Saloon with Rollie Tussing, Rob Stroup & The Blame, and Miriams Well.  Music begins at 8:30 pm.  Friday moves to the Laurelthirst at 9 pm with Miss Michael Jodell & The Slow Healers, followed by the James Low Western Front.  And Saturday finishes off the weekend shows at Biddy McGraw's (also at 9 pm) with the Little Sue Band and Lisa & Her Kin.  The suggested donation for all shows is $10.  Across the three evenings there's blues, rock, country and a couple of Portland's best singer/songwriters ... music that should appeal to a variety of tastes and schedules.

Proceeds from Gulfsongs will go to two organizations that are providing immediate assistance into the local communities - The Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, and the Community Foundation of Acadiana through their Gulf Aid Acadiana fund.

More shows are being booked weekly as part of the series.  Here's the current schedule. Stay tuned to Oregon Music News and Gulfsongs Oregon for complete information on upcoming events.

Oregon Music News is Gulfsongs Oregon exclusive online media sponsor, and Gulfsongs would not be possible without the great support from the Cascade Blues Association, Amanda Gresham's Delta Music Experience - which provided table space at the Waterfront Blues Festival, music publicist Alex Steininger, Stacy DeHart of Perfect Pitch Booking, artists Tim Huggins and Jay Martin, our local venues and musicians, and a group of dedicated volunteers from inside and out of the Portland music community.

Gulfsongs Oregon is also actively seeking organizational underwriting to provide acknowledgment of the contributions made by the musicians to this effort and to help extend the reach of Gulfsongs Oregon to other venues in the Northwest. So if you know any businesses interested in supporting this effort, we have put together some sponsor packages that they might be interested in learning about.

For additional information, links and resources visit the Gulfsongs Oregon website and/or Facebook page (become our friend too, if you haven't already).

Thanks to all of you who read the blog and get out to support live music .... the combination of live music and supporting a cause you believe in is even better!

Hope to see you at one of the shows ....

   - Jim