Topping the nominee list this year are The Mannish Boys, who received six nods, including Band of the Year, Traditional Album of the Year and Album of the Year.

Slide guitarist Elvin Bishop, pianist Eden Brent, songstress Janiva Magness, soul man Curtis Salgado and former truck driver Watermelon Slim tied with four nominations each. Buddy Guy was nominated for three awards and B.B. King nominated for two.

Jeff Healey and Sean Costello both received posthumous nominations.

This year, the Blues Foundation, which is comprised of 3,000 individual members and 160 affiliated member-based blues societies, added a Rock Blues category. First-time nominations in the category went to Gary Moore, Healey, Michael Burks, Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King, Sonny Landreth and Walter Trout.

More information and the complete list of nominees: CLICK

Congratulations to the 30th Blues Music Award nominees.

Voting is now open for foundation members at http://www.blues.org/bluesmusicawards/vote.php4 . Voting will continue until 07:59:59 Monday, March 2. That gives you plenty of time to become a more educated voter by purchasing the nominated CDs and seeing the nominated artists perform live. Wouldn't it be great if a Blues Music Nomination proved a financial blessing for the nominees? And think of the fun you will have doing your homework!! Remember, you can vote now and come back at any time to revise your ballot. Vote early just in case the lines are long on election day!

Tickets are for sale now too at https://www.blues.org/tickets/bma.php. When you order and your level of membership are two of the factors that determine how close you sit and with whom you sit.

To book a room at the host Memphis Marriott Downtown, click here.

Mr. Bell notes that both the website and online radio station were launched as works in progress so that the consumer, the recorded music industry, entertainment industry, and businesses in general would know what he is doing. Bell insists that, during these changing times, he wishes to create an entity that can be "of service" to many.

The Al Bell Presents website is designed to function as an interactive Internet portal that offers users a variety of elements designed to "entertain, engage, excite, inform and educate." Within these parameters it serves as a fully integrated online experience that will be scalable and constantly updated in order to provide its audience the most up-to-date content possible.

Similarly, Al Bell Presents American Soul Music features musical selections hand-picked and programmed by Mr. Bell, including over two thousand classic tracks from Stax, Motown, Philadelphia International, and other record labels' catalogs. Mr. Bell has committed his expert ear and sense of radio formatics to develop this channel into the quintessential online listening experience for all fans of Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Neo-Hip-Hop, Neo-Rap, and Neo-Soul. In addition to the music, the channel will feature Al Bell's personal observations about the artists, the emotions, the history, and the heritage.

Both the online channel and the website can be experienced at www.AlBellPresents.Com

"It is my desire to provide a music experience that has not been enjoyed before," commented Al Bell, chairman and chief executive officer of Al Bell Presents. "It is my desire through this diverse mixture of music to provide a connection to the past and a life line into the future. I ask all who will listen to help me. Please give me your comments and recommend the music we should be playing. Make this your our radio station. Email me at al.bell@albellpresents.com."

"Mr. Bell came to our offices in Charleston to sit down with me and learn what our capabilities were," recalls Edward F. Seeger, chairman of American Media Services. "I showed him what we had done thus far with TheRadio.Com and our 'Stax Trax' channel, which featured the artists he worked with and the label he ran in Memphis. He then shared with me his vision of the future for music, programming, and sales, and it was a perfect fit with mine, so we came to the conclusion to make it work together. AMSI is proud to work with Mr. Al Bell, an icon of the music industry, and to take this concept into the digital realm. The site is outstanding with its streaming 24 hour music format and the plans for more and more features will make this a must-visit site for anyone who appreciates Soul music. There is a profound change coming no, it's already here and quickly growing from analog to digital. The venture between American Media Services-Interactive and Mr. Al Bell will be a front-runner in this new music era."

FOR MORE:CLICK

U.S. album sales were down 21.7 percent during the first week of December compared with the same period last year, accelerating from the 17.4 percent decline recorded during the last two weeks of November, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

For the three-week period ended December 7, sales were down 18.9 percent from a year earlier, compared with the 13.8 percent decline for the year-to-date period.

The continued slide in CD sales remains the industry's biggest challenge, even though hit albums are selling better this year than last. Sales of the top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 for the three weeks ended December 7 totaled 5.8 million units, up 2.9 percent from 5.7 million during the same period of 2007. But overall CD sales are down 24.7 percent during that period to 28.2 million units, a faster pace of decline than the 19.3 percent drop recorded year to date.

In general, smaller chains and independent retailers are performing better than large chains and mass merchants. For the first three weeks of the holiday selling season, indie stores have seen album sales decline 8.6 percent, while chains suffered a 19 percent drop and mass merchants saw sales plunge 29.2 percent.

Nontraditional retail, which includes digital downloads, online CD sellers, concert venues and stores like Starbucks, saw album sales rise 8.7 percent from a year earlier, but that gain fell short of the 15.3 percent increase those channels have collectively tallied year to date.

MORE ICE CREAM, LESS MUSIC

Retailers are responding to the deteriorating business conditions with cost reductions and plans to reduce CD floor space in the new year.

"DVD, Blu-ray are doing great, the CD, no," said an executive at a large wholesaler. "I expect next year that we will be cutting back on our CD buying ... we will be buying less of each title."

Dilyn Radakovitz, co-owner of the six-unit, Sacramento, California-based Dimple Records, said she expects that in the new year her chain will no longer carry deep catalog -- work extending back beyond current releases to cover recording artists' entire careers as well as work by lesser-known acts.

"It's not happening for CDs anymore, and I told my husband we are going to have to remodel the stores again in January to take that into account," she said. "Instead of carry 'A' titles, 'B' titles, 'C' titles and 'D' titles, we may only be an 'A' and 'B' titles store."

In their place, Dimples is bringing in books and more trend merchandise. Right now, magic cards and yo-yos are doing well, Radakovitz said.

"I am also selling a lot of ice cream," she said. "I can make a 50 percent margin on ice cream, while on CDs I can lose two bucks."

For more: CLICK

"We're dollar-driven. When we get another dollar, we'll drive another nail," said Vivian Filer, who has spearheaded the effort to preserve the Cotton Club. "At this point we're trying to complete phase one with windows, doors and completing the roof. We're $30,000 out from doing that."

Filer said they hope to seal off the historic building before winter weather further harms the structure.

So far the Cotton Club restoration project has been funded by $350,000 from a state of Florida historic preservation grant and various private donations. The building has been stabilized. The old white-washed exterior boards, which contained faded signage from when the club was known as the Blue Note, have been removed.

Filer said a majority of those boards will be replaced in an effort to maintain historic integrity and also keep the construction environmentally friendly.

"To accomplish what they have accomplished, thus far, is incredible," said Anthony Lyons, director of the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency. "To take a piece of property that has been vacant and falling down for a number of years and redevelop it is absolutely amazing."

However, Filer and her board have much more envisioned for the almost two-acre site at 837 SE 7th Ave. than simply a museum in the historic building.

Rather, the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center will integrate three shot-gun houses and a historic grocery store into a gathering place and focal point for the community.

Filer said she hopes the grocery store - constructed in the 1950s using materials from an even older store - will become the location of a farmers market.

She said the beautiful lot with old oak trees draped with Spanish moss would be a great location for a café that serves coffee and pastries.

Lyons said the CRA has about $175,000 set aside for these secondary projects that will draw people to the location.

"The people who lived in these houses were the African-Americans who worked on the railroad and these are the closest remaining examples," Filer said.

For more: CLICK

There were no blues at the Southeast Emergency Food Pantry Wednesday, when Buddy Guy took on the role of Santa. The blues great was passing out bags of cheer, containing ham, chicken, produce and all the fixings for a big holiday meal.

"I once went three days without food. When I got here and Muddy Waters came and fed me. To have an empty stomach, that's a miserable feeling," Guy said.

Guy remembers his own humble beginnings and that's why he's coming to the aide of others in this trying economy.

The Southeast Emergency Food Pantry has been serving people for 30 years, but this is the first year the pantry had to close for a few days. While the overall number of donations has gone down, the number of people in need has gone up.

"Oh, our numbers have tripled. Last month we had a total of 190 families, which turned out to be 559 individuals," Gladys Howell the pantry site director said.

That's a lot of mouths to feed with little food. Guy came to the rescue with a $1,000 donation, which was enough to provide Christmas dinners for about 100 families that would have otherwise gone without.

"It means a lot to me. It helps me and my family," Samuel Fryson said.

"I'm feeling wonderful. I'm feeling blessed. I'm feeling happy," Betty Robinson said.

If you would like to make a donation to the pantry, you can drop off food, or send a check to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Be sure to indicate if you want the money set aside specifically for the Southeast Emergency Food Pantry.

The Blues & Soul music community, artists, managers, agents, promoters, clubs, radio DJs and fans of great Blues, Soul and Southern Soul music are to be a part of the selection for our upcoming Jus Blues Music Award Ballot. It is encouraged that you summit information on artists and candidates that should be considered for the ballot of the upcoming 2009 Jus` Blues Music Awards held on Beale Street during August 5th thru August 9th in Memphis, Tennessee.

FOR MORE INFO AND TO VOTE:  www.jusbluesmusic.com.

Post Office Box 44771

Atlanta, Georgia 30336

(678) 403-1993

Right now? The Indian Ocean is crashing up against the seawall below my balcony. Somewhere, they're toasting spices: cardamom, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg and clove I think. Two young men in jungle cammos chat amiably above the narrow strip of beach that flanks the hotel, their AK-47s slung low at their sides. A few hundred yards to my left, at the top of what looks like an abandoned building, three more soldiers man a heavier, belt-fed weapon suitable for shooting down airplanes. Every once in a while, a baby-faced soldier pokes his head around the corner from next door and smiles at me.

I'm listening to Depeche Mode's "World In My Eyes" and sipping gin and tonic from a tall glass and feeling kind of sad about things to be perfectly honest. The roadblocks, checkpoints, and omnipresent security in Colombo-an otherwise perfectly lovely, friendly city-have been bringing me down.

MORE ON TRAVEL SONGS: World Hum's Top 40 Travel Songs | Interactive Map

I'm not really a Depeche Mode fan. I certainly didn't listen to them in the ‘80s when they were at the height of their popularity. In fact, I believed at the time that they and their synthesizer-driven ilk had pretty much destroyed music as I knew and loved it. But more and more these days on the road, I find The Dead Boys and Richard Hell to be inappropriate to how I'm feeling and what's going on outside my window. I'm listening to stuff I would never listen to at home like Tears For Fears, Talk Talk and the Cure. Like poking an old wound, I keep coming back to them because they remind me of sad or troubled or long-gone days, or because in their own cheesily atmospheric way, they're about sad, even more atmospheric situations. The way I want and need to feel when far from home.

If we are all heroes of the movies constantly unspooling inside our heads, then mine is apparently the protagonist from Graham Greeneland: a world-weary fellow, resigned to his tragic (but invariably aesthetic) fate in some beautiful place on the other side of the world, far from those he loves. And most times, I choose music that enhances that over-romantic conceit.

I've slowly built over the years not a collection of favorite tunes, but a soundtrack to a film in which I am alternately hero, villain or victim-depending on circumstances.

For the rest: CLICK

The fishin' blues raffle is sold out but there is still room for a few more fishermen to join us at Casa Vieja on the Pacific this winter. The 7th annual Fishin' Blues Tournament is 6 days of fun in the Guatemalan sun. We will fish for marlin, tuna, saltfish & more by day and groove to the world's best live blues by night. All you need is your passport, shorts, sneakers, a hat & some sunscreen...and we will even throw in the hat for you!

Only a few spots remain, so register here today!

Police in Genoa, on Italy's northwestern coast, said the 16-year-old victim remained hospitalized, but his life was not in danger.

He was attacked Saturday night after the band Soul Cry rehearsed in Sestri Ponente, a small town near Genoa. He was stabbed about 50 times, mainly to his back and head, said police official Alessandra Bucci in Genoa.

The 18-year-old singer, Cristina Balzano, and her 16-year-old brother, the band's bass player, were arrested on charges of premeditated attempted murder.

During the rehearsal, band members accused the victim of playing poorly, police said. The attack occurred moments later in a narrow alley.

Balzano was caught by police holding a kitchen knife with a 7-inch (18-centimeter) blade, her brother next to her and the victim in a pool of blood, Bucci said.

"The motive - absurd as that is - is apparently that the way my client played his instrument did not satisfy the two," said Giuseppe Maria Muscolo, a lawyer for the victim.

Police said they had seized a note that the 16-year-old suspect wrote to the victim days before the attack that read: "I'm preparing a nice little funeral for you."

The victim has accused both suspects of stabbing him, police and the lawyer said.

Balzano initially said she was trying to stop the victim from committing suicide, Bucci said. She later refused to answer investigators' questions. Her brother has accused her of being the only attacker.

Lawyers for the suspects could not immediately be reached for comment. But the Genoa-based paper Il Secolo XIX quoted lawyers for Balzano as saying she doesn't remember anything and that they had asked for a psychological evaluation.

Jan enjoys decorating events & stages, and does specialized custom floral design to fit any occasion throughout the year. To contact Jan & place an order call: (541) 606-1070 or email her at: artistsinmotion2@gmail.com.

Visit her website at: http://www.myspace.com/janbrownartinmusic.

Please identify which organization you would like your 20% to go to at time of order.

Christmas is just around the corner my friends. As always, we like to lay some holiday music on you. Music that is a little off the beaten track. No Rudolph, no Chestnuts on the fire,no Jingle Bells. This aint no White Christmas. It is a Blue Christmas. Join Elwood this week on the House of Blues Radio Hour for some Christmas Blues.

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