Don’t miss out on Portland’s REAL Blues Festival
People die without health care. 70% of Americans support a Single Payer healthcare system but the politicians don’t listen and people keep dying. We’re being done wrong, but who cares and who’ll fix it? What do we do? Here’s an answer that’s worked for 150 years: sing the Blues! Join us on April 27 as Norman Sylvester, LaRhonda Steele, and seven more of the regions hottest Blues acts take the stage for SIX HOURS of the nastiest, grittiest, hottest, most soul-searing music around! It’s the 8th Annual Inner City Blues Festival and it’s all in support of Health Care for All Oregon, the group working to bring Single Payer Health Care to Oregon and beyond…
The 8th Annual Inner City Blues Festival, “Healing the Healthcare Blues,” returns April 27th to the North Portland Eagles Lodge, 7611 N. Exeter (at Lombard). Doors will open at 5:00 p.m. and music runs until 11:00 p.m.
The 2019 Festival full lineup includes…
Norman Sylvester Revue featuring Lenanne Miller & Renato Caranto
(R&B sponsored by City of Portland “We Are Better Together”)
Blues Guitar Generations Finale w/ Norman Sylvester, Tevis Hodge Jr. & Timothy James
(sponsored by Gresham City Councilor Eddy Morales)
Richard Arnold Trio
(Jazz sponsored by Tom Dwyer Automotive)
LaRhonda Steele Band
(Soulful Grooves sponsored by Ragtimepdx Classy Cleaners)
Shoehorn
(Tap-Sax Sensation sponsored by Oregon Integrated Health)
Nurseband w/Mad as Hell Doctors, Interns & Nurses
(Folk sponsored by Nurses for Single Payer)
Bloco Alegria
(Brazilian dancing & drumming sponsored by ¿Por Que No? Taqueria)
Bayou Boyz featuring Lloyd Jones
(Swamp Blues sponsored by Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals Local 5017)
Steve Cheseborough
(Country Blues sponsored by The Spare Room)
Tom Dwyer Automotive is a loud and proud supporter of Single Payer healthcare, especially HealthCare for All Oregon, and the Inner City Blues Festival is one of the most enjoyable ways we can think of to work for the health care we all need. Check out some of our past coverage here…
Portland musicians have had life-threatening difficulties in accessing health care. Norman Sylvester makes the point:
“I have played too many benefits for musicians who fell ill or, more tragically, played for their Celebration of Life. They didn’t have preventative care because of years of not being able to afford healthcare.”
Curtis Salgado tells his story:
“I am no stranger to the health insurance system. In 2006, I was uninsured and had a liver transplant that I paid for by holding a benefit concert. Then in 2017, I had a heart attack while I was traveling with my band in New England. My insurance plan, bought through the Obamacare marketplace, billed me as ‘out of ‘network’ because I was hospitalized in New Hampshire. I won that one on appeal because my heart surgery was an emergency! But there were still huge deductibles and co-payments that my insurance did not cover. So we turned to YouCaring (like GoFundMe) to pay my bills and raised about $35,000. This was humiliating and embarrassing, but my family, friends and fans helped me get through the financial and emotional stress. That’s a beautiful thing, but I’d rather have had full insurance to take care of my health care needs. Now I am back to performing again and I feel I owe the universe.”
The Blues Festival is a fundraiser for Health Care for All Oregon (HCAO), an organization working to educate Oregonians and advocate for universal, publicly-funded health care. HCAO is a statewide non-profit organization of health care professionals, faith communities, business owners, labor unions, community groups, and individuals all working together to bring:
Better Health Care
To More People
For Less Money
HCAO’s statewide activities include: building local HCAO chapters, tabling at street fairs, conferences and farmers’ markets; speaking at events; film screenings and forums in towns and cities in Oregon; passing local resolutions in support of a universal care system and engaging Oregonians in the fight for universal access to health care. For more information go to hcao.org.
The uncertainties about access to and costs of healthcare mean that HCAO’s work is now more important than ever. A recent poll found that 70 percent of Americans support “Medicare for all,” also known as a single-payer healthcare system.
Help us get to universal health care by coming to the Blues Festival. As if six hours of music isn’t enough, there will be a silent auction, two bars, dinner and dessert for purchase, as well as a community village. Follow on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/2118218138426966/
Admission is $25 in advance.
Tickets are available at TicketTomato or at Music Millennium, 3158 E Burnside; Geneva’s Shear Perfection, 5601 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.; Peninsula Station, 8316 N. Lombard.
Tickets are $30 at the door.
