On January 16th our Crossroads Blues Society presented Blues in the Schools (BITS) with Pistol Pete. We presented the program to about 620 students. Approximately 400 students at Nashold Elementary school attended and about 400 of them shook Pete’s hand or hugged him after the show. We also had about 120 music students at Lincoln Middle School attend the BITS program. The middle school students were into music and asked numerous questions, including, “What is your favorite color?”. For the record, purple is Pete's color of choice.Pete did a fine job of performing and explaining the history of Blues and the value of getting an education. He also had to put up with Harmonica Joe on stage. It took little to no coaxing to get Joe up there; for those of you who know Joe this will not come as a surprise. Actually, Pete would probably had to forcibly restrain Joe from playing as it is believed that Joe arranged this as part of Pete’s agreement to work with us.
In all seriousness, Joe did a great job arranging the programs and escorting Pete around. It was also good to have other Society members attend the shows. Pat Reilly , Mark Thompson and Rick Hein attended at least one of the BITS programs. We would like to give a special thanks to Rick Hein for all his help with BITS.
Both the Rockford Register Star and Rock River Times showed up at Nashold School to cover Blues in the Schools programs. The Register Star article featured a picture of Pistol Pete, another of the students and a nice article about the program. The Rock River Times also featured the programs in a fine article with pictures.
At Lincoln MS, Joes’ granddaughter Aubrey got to be on stage with Pete and was also thanked by the Band Director for getting her Grandpa to bring BITS to Lincoln. A good time was had by all.BITS trivia: Pete really likes the new Kentucky Fried Chicken hot wings.
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