Some thoughts on being inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame

	Dartanyan's Influences album now on CD!
	Photos and more from the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame

A real honor from some of the finest folks on this planet.

Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart.

Dartanyan Brown 2004 Blues Hall of Fame	1. Every once in awhile something happens to you that makes all the hard going worth it. The The Iowa Blues Society has inducted me into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame, a special circle of Iowa born men and women who have devoted much of their lives to playing great American roots music. My co-inductee, guitarist Ron Dewitte and I want to acknowledge the other members of the Wheatstraw band: drummer David Bernstein from Ottumwa, Ia. and keyboardist Craig Horner, originally from Galesburg, Ill. We were great friends then, and now we're great old friends.	Email me here dartanyan@dartanyan.com 2. From my earliest remembrances, music was never far away but it was also associated with the hard times that were ever-present for musicians, and African American ones in particular. Early in my life, personal strife turned me into a lost individual, struggling for identity. It was during those times that I found in the Blues something honest and real that helped me to cope with life enough to develop the grit to survive. After my parents influence, men like G.T. Clinton Harlan Thomas, Rick Lussey, Sam Salomone, John Rowat, and Don Archer, Tom Gordon really came to me at a particularly important time in life to help me to reconnect with the strength that only music provides.
3. While we all listened to records for inspiration and ideas, it was local musicians like those I mentioned earlier and guys like Wally Ackerson who, among others, sat down with me and showed me face-to-face how to play the blues. While listening to records is a very, very important element of learning to play this music, its the personal, close contact of master and student that drives the communication of culture. We were lucky in Des Moines in the period of 1950-1980 to have access to many indigenous musicians who shared their knowledge with younger generations. The unique thing about our generation of 60's players is the staggering variety of styles you could learn just by hanging out. Blues, of course, was the common language for all of us. No matter whether you were a country picker from Carlisle, a Center street Jazz player, a young white rocker from the Drake neighborhood or the gospel and R & B players from the S.E. side and Lee township or even the Latino players like Bobby Aquiniga and Joe Hernandez. We all spoke the blues when it came to jam sessions and then we added our own stuff in there too. Of course, the real value, from a musical and musicological point of view is that by having such a staggering variety of young and old, black, white and Latino musicians all jamming together mixing idioms was a precursor of the World music, Jam band and Jazz/Bluegrass fusions made popular in other places on planet earth.	4. After 10 years as an artist-educator in Marin County, CA., it makes me proud to see new generations of young musicians using ideas we developed back in the day to become the kind of young artists who are dedicated to using mindful intellect combined with fierce humanity to make this world incredibly more sane. I never forget the thrill I had when Harlan Thomas, Gene Jackson, and Chicago Rick Lussey came to me and asked me to play with them back in '65 or so. Giving that same thrill to young musicians coming up now is what it's all about. Let's all do what we can to keep the circle unbroken. They can make fun of Iowa if they want but after they hear Ronnie Dewitte, or Sam or Ernie or Joanne they end up picking their jaws up off the floor. Go figure, huh?	5. Today's Hall of Fame ceremony also gives me an opportunity to thank the two people without whom I certainly would not be here. My father Ellsworth T. Brown and my dear Mother the Rev. Mary Alice Thompson Brown. My mother's side of this family has roots in Buxton, Iowa where my Grandmother was born in the late 1800's. Few people today realize that Buxton, a simple Monroe county coal mining community was where the dream of equality between races was actually practiced. Ellsworth, from Philadelphia, was one of the few African American radio engineers in W.W.II and he applied that same genius to music becoming one of the noted and notorious Jazz players of Des Moines in the 1950's. I like to think I inherited his zest for knowledge about technology and art. Heartfelt thanks to Lynette, Jeff, Serena, Don, and everyone at CIBS (Central Iowa Blues Society) for caring. Sincerely, Dartanyan Brown (12/16/07)
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