Downtown Durham and Centerfest

Once again it is time for Centerfest in the downtown Durham......as I have stated before I definitely prefer it throughout downtown versus being in the Parking lot area near the YMCA.....maybe one day it can return to the downtown area......just like I hope that one day the Blues Festival can definitely have a ballpark atmosphere again....the many vendors and people mingling around along with the music definitely give a true festival feel.....Now if we can have that and then add various locations throughout town so it's a Big festival feel like what they have in New Orleans and other cities that have great festivals that would be ideal.....The festival was still great with music from Buddy Guy who went into the audience and really pleased the audience with his history lessons of the Blues in addition to great performances.......and another great act was Wild Magnolias who had the members of the audience, yours truly included, get on the stage and dance with them........yeah I know I have two left feet but it was still a blast....SMILE.....Betty Lavette also gave a soulful peformance and the performance by my friend Melva Houston as well as newer friend Jo Gore were also good and of course it was fun having some activities on the outside with two bands even though I had to do some hustling and some conversating to make sure we had some sound but things worked out finally......
Friday night was good at Hayti as well and I was so glad to hear MSG do a rendition of one of their songs that is one of my favorites called Mean Church People...you know we have all run into those and a painting that Spencer did was real good and definitely captured the essence of local legend John Dee Holeman......The kids group that Hayti put together also did a really good job and folks also enjoyed the kid from Asheville and of course Mel Melton definitely got the crowd pumped up.....
Just finished checking out King Kenney doing his steal the art event where people were getting some great art, in some cases actually for free in the downtown area....He was also remembering his days of being a teen in Durham and playing some great pick up games with Duke stars like Brian Davis, Grant Hill, and Christian Laettner and realizing they have major game and could even hang with the street ball players......King was also talking about getting away from the throwing party thing though he said he would love to put together a black Rock club here in the area and also likes hitting the house parties in Raleigh and Charlotte......His art work is definitely eye catching and he is getting some good prices for it...he was just recently commissioned by the Sienna in Chapel Hill to do four pieces for them....He speculated that Casbah will be about half the size of Cat's Cradle but it does have good sound system and that the other new club near Trotter will definitely be about the size of the Cradle....
Now I do regret missing Chuck Brown in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago and Public Enemy last week but that was the weekend of the Blues festival and the other weekend was a work weekend if memory serves me right....But maybe I can catch them on a rebound show somewhere. Getting ready to go check out Veeda and Mixed Water in downtown Durham....Just ran into a friend of mine who is trying to figure out a way to expose our youths to the kind of travel opportunities she got to enjoy going to places like Brazil, the Caribbean, and Paris for our work at Glaxo Smith-Kline which she just retired from..I think I might have some contacts for her in that realm.......By the way on a lighter note I won my first game in Fantasy Football in Tuffa last week...Maybe this is a good sign and I can finally win a big prize...one can only hope...SMILE....