The Mohawk Valley Blues Society is proud to announce the songs and artists that will appear on the compilation CD.
The long wait and anticipation is over. On Wednesday night, March 29th, a panel of 8 member judges listened to 35 songs submitted for consideration for the Mohawk Valley Blues Society CD compilation. There were actually 37 songs but two artists had submitted 4 songs and three was the limit.
MVBS Chairman, Rob Bishton, was not a judge but oversaw the song selection. Each song was played as the panel listened intently for 2 ½ hours in the ballroom of the Ramada Inn. The songs were randomly loaded on 2 CD's at Castle Recording Studio. The songs were numbered in the ordered that they were played. No one knew the songs or the artists in advance and were told to keep their comments to themselves. Everyone gave their full attention to the task at hand.
Tis was not an easy task for the panel. Overall, there were many really, really good songs. There were a few different songs that scored a perfect 20 by some judges. There were a number of songs submitted that were worthy, but just didn't fit the criteria well enough.
There were 4 Categories: 3 Sub Categories and the Overall Song Category. The scoring was on a 1 to 10 system with 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest score. The Sub Categories were scored and then averaged together… then added to the Overall Song Score. The highest possible averaged judged score was 20. All songs with averaged judged scores above 12 were considered.
The highest scoring song was 16.28. The song was "Count the Tears" submitted by John Hutson. There were 6 songs that scored in the 14 to 15.99 range. Below this, things got even tighter in the 12 to 13.99 range.
After much thought and discussion, these are the songs in order that they will appear on the Mohawk Valley Blues Society CD Compilation, Volume One.
The project was successful through a NYS grant allocated by the CNY Arts Council, and made possible by our grant sponsor, the American Legion -Clifford J. Fullmer Post 92 in Sangerfield. Thanks to member Wayne "Drifter" Jones and all the members of the Legion post!
