As well as providing four weekends of exceptional entertainment at Harbourfront Plaza through August, the Nanaimo Blues Festival Society has given birth to dozens of Hidden Heroes.

These “heroes” include the board of directors – Bill and Val Lucas, Tom Dodge, Jeff Tomlinson, Ed Poli, Nancy Mitchell and Paul and Tina Abgrall – and the more than thirty other volunteers who turned up each and every weekend through August. Several of these people spent Saturday nights, all night, providing security on the site so that the stage, tents and sound equipment wouldn’t have to be taken down and then put up again Sunday morning.

Having just completed its second season to rave reviews from those who have been attending (a growing crowd each weekend), the Nanaimo blues Festival Society’s work for the third season has already begun.

Part of that year round work includes efforts to support their constitutional requirement that they do what they can to mentor youth. To that end Bill Lucas and Tom Dodge have been turning up at the Nanaimo Youth Services Association’s Cookin with the Blues program every second Sunday afternoon year round.

Organized by Anthony Maki, the program provides young people with a good hot meal and an opportunity to spend the afternoon playing music supported by mentors like Bill and Tom.

It was the Cookin With the Blues program that gave birth to Love in Vain, the band featured in the photo.

Earlier this year a friend of Bill and tom’s saw a “guitar for sale” ad in Duncan and called to have a look at it. To make a long story short, the guitar belonged to twelve year old, Ray Visscher, and when their friend heard Ray play; he immediately called Bill and Tom to say they had to meet this kid.

Bill and Tom drove down to Duncan, Tom with his “harps” and Bill with his guitar. The jam that followed led to an invitation for Ray to join them at Cookin with the Blues the next weekend. A few days later, Tom ran into Elyse Paquette, who he had heard singing with her dad, Jerry Paquette, one of my personal Hidden Heroes – I’ll tell that story at another time – and Elyse was invited to meet Ray at the next Cookin with the Blues session.

A lot of people talk about Ray as being Stevie Ray Vaughn reborn and, by the way, he was born on the same day, if not the same year, that Stevie died. People also talk about Alyse as sounding a lot like a young Aretha Franklyn.

Everyone agreed that it was a match made at Nanaimo Youth Services, if not a match made in heaven, and the kids agreed that they would like to form a band. As we all know there is no shortage of musical talent in Nanaimo. In fact the rest of the band all came from the same high school, NDSS, and they all have incredible musical genes. Luke Nixon, the drummer, is Paul Nixon’s son. Paul plays with the Downchild Blues Band. Nico Rhodes (piano and sax) is singer/songwriter, Joelle Rabu’s son and bass player, Jeremy MacLeod’s dad is a well-respected studio bassist.

When Jerry Paquette offered to manage the band, regular practices began in his Raincoast Studio.

Although the band has played publicly only three times, they were called back for two encores when the played at the Blues Festival a couple of weeks ago and kids and adults were lined up to get autographs.

You can never tell if a band in going to stick together but Bill and Tom agree that each has the potential to go far in the music business.

Good job of mentoring you guys and thanks for all you do for the music scene in Nanaimo.