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Uptown Music Collective students International Blues Showcase in Memphis

PHOTO PROVIDED Members of the Uptown Music Collective’s 3rd Street Blues Band are, from left, in front: Izzy Brumbaugh and Cade Palmatier; in the middle row: Shayne Williams and Tate Berkey; and in back: Alexis Carnevale and Justin Warrender.

WILLIAMSPORT — The Uptown Music Collective is gearing up to take its community performance group The 3rd Street Blues Band, to participate in the International Blues Challenge’s Youth Showcase in Memphis, Tenn.

The band will host a fundraiser for the trip tonight at Jeremiah’s at The Bullfrog Brewery.

The International Blues Challenge (IBC) is a yearly event organized by the Blues Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Memphis and dedicated to preserving the history of the blues. Held over a five-day period, the yearly competition attracts blues groups and solo artists from all around the world who compete for recognition, awards, and prizes. The upcoming event will run from Jan. 16 to Jan. 20.

Since 1997, the Billtown Blues Association, a local affiliate of the Blues Foundation, has chosen one band and one solo artist each year to represent the Williamsport area. Many local artists and bands have made the trip over the past 20-plus years.

This year the Billtown Blues Association has, once again, also agreed to graciously sponsor the application for a group of students from the Uptown Music Collective to represent the Billtown Blues Association in the IBC Youth Showcase. The showcase gives young people under the age of 21 the opportunity to show their talents in a blues club on the world-famous Beale Street in Memphis, for blues fans from all over the world.

Next month, the Uptown Music Collective proposes to load seven students, with an average age of 15, and four members of the staff into the collective’s van for a highly educational musical journey into the Deep South. Departing on Jan. 17, the group will travel to Nashville for an evening of touring, hanging out, and a possible gig in Music City, before continuing on to the primary destination of Memphis. There the students will perform on historic Beale Street, watch the preliminary rounds and finals of the Blues Challenge, visit music museums and tour historic sites. After a few days in Memphis, the van will head down Highway 61 into the Mississippi Delta where the students will stay at the historic Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Miss. There they will soak up the sights and sounds of the cradle of the blues, searching for Robert Johnson’s grave and touring the Delta Blues Museum, before making the trip home.

The 3rd Street Blues Band is comprised of Alexis Carnevale (vocals), Cade Palmatier (guitar), Justin Warrender (guitar), Shayne Williams (bass and vocals), Izzy Brumbaugh (keys), and Tate Berkey (drums).

Formed in the summer of 2016, the group has performed at festivals and venues throughout North-central Pennsylvania, specializing in traditional and modern female-fronted blues music. The band opened the highly respected 2017 Billtown Blues Festival.

Since its start, the 3rd Street Blues Band has carved a powerful reputation for itself as a soul-stealing, high energy, hard-driving blues band.

This will be the third collective blues performance group to make the trip to the IBC Youth Showcase. The first was The Young Blood Blues Band, in 2013, and the second was The Black Strat Blues Company in 2015.

The 3rd Street Blues Band has been raising money to fund this trip for the past couple months and will be putting on two final fundraising concerts in the coming weeks.

The first will take place tonight at 7 p.m. in Jeremiah’s Listening Room above the Bullfrog Brewery in downtown Williamsport. The performance will feature sets from 3rd Street as well as special guests and UMC alumni Gabe Stillman and the Billtown Giants.

On Friday, Jan. 5 at 7 p.m., the band will host a “send-off” concert at the Community Arts Center lounge, 220 W. Fourth St.

“One of the things I enjoy the most about what we do is giving opportunities to our students today that I wish I had when I was a kid,” said Dave Brumbaugh, founder and executive director of the Uptown Music Collective. “The Blues is possibly the most important of the many streams flowing into the river of modern music. Having this opportunity to study that music with experienced instructors, and then to take that knowledge on a musical pilgrimage to the place where it all began, will be a life-changing experience for these young people.”

Those who would like to learn more about the 3rd Street Blues Band and their trip to Memphis should visit the collective’s website (uptownmusic.org/3rdst2bealest) or the band’s official Facebook Page (facebook.com/UMC3rdStBluesBand).

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