MO Blues spent Sunday singing the blues - hopefully all the way to the bank.
Its annual Blue Sunday event at Memorial Park featured free blues and BBQ, with donations and T-shirt sales going toward its capstone program, Blues in the Schools.
The program brings in professional educators who are also blues musicians to local schools to teach about the genre of music and its history.
Last year, the association funded educators to give programs at three local schools, plus the Special Learning Center.
It wants to teach kids about the blues so the music will continue for the next generation.
"Blues is more pervasive than people think," said Chuck Renn, the association's secretary and former president. "it's very prevalent in the Netherlands, in Holland. You wouldn't think of it being there. And it's really big in Israel."
In the '60s, bands such as the Rolling Stones brought it to the United States, he said. Even some bands that many people would never associate with blues, such as AC/DC, have strong blues roots in their music.
One of the association's go-to blues educators has been TJ Wheeler, who plays blues as well as jazz and ragtime, among other genres of music.
He also plays a variety of instruments, ranging from the seven-string guitar, ukulele, tenor banjo, one-string diddley bow, tap percussion, vocals and kazoo.
He has performed his "Hope, Heroes and the Blues" workshop/concert for more than 450,000 students throughout the world, according to his website.
Through his career, he has won a host of awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation.
This year, the association hopes Blue Sunday will bring in $1,000 so that it can continue Blues in the Schools, Renn said.
About 250 people attended Sunday's event, MO Blues President Kris Webber said. It was a good showing, he said, but probably would have been better if not for the heat.
Wilson said each of the three bands that played would command ticket prices of $10-$20 at Kansas City bars.
D'Arcy Crane attended the event with family and friends.
"It was good. I love live music pretty much in general," she said. "We walked here from our house to hear some live music. You can't beat that on a Sunday."
Mo Blues has talked about the possibility of bringing in Fruteland Jackson, an American electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. But who they bring into schools and how many schools "depends on the success of Blue Sunday and how much we'll be able to raise," Renn said.
They've typically done the "Blues in the Schools" program in the fall, which is when Columbia holds its Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival. That event this year features dozens of accomplished blues artists ranging from local band Chump Change to national acts such as Blues Traveler.
Sunday's event featured the Ted Tyson Band, a Columbia band that performs lots of originals; Blues Highway, a new band from Mexico that performs traditional blues; and Square D Band, journeyman blues players who opened the show at 1 p.m.
The organization also gave away "Mississippi prime rib" - that's blues-speak for fried bologna sandwiches with barbecue sauce, along with soda and chips.