Keeping The Blues Alive is a prestigious blues award which is presented every year in Memphis by the Blues Foundation to those whose actions significantly promote the blues music in the world. In the 37 years since the establishment of the award, there have been just a few European blues groups which have had the honour to receive it. Now, one of them is the Croatian group called Croatian Blues Forces, an association which represents Croatia in the blues music world, reports Večernji List on November 14, 2018.
The association is celebrating its tenth anniversary, as well as ten years of sending its representatives to Memphis, so the award could not have come at a better time.
Boris Hrepić is a well-known Croatian musician, formerly of the Daleka Obala band. He switched to the blues music a while back and has been the president of the Croatian Blues Forces for the last six years. He is highly impressed with the award.
“When I received the news about the award, I had to sit down immediately because my knees started buckling. This is a major honour for our association and for Croatia to receive this award, especially since I know that some much larger and stronger associations have been applying for years for this award, while we received it in our first attempt. But this shows that we are striving to promote the blues music on several levels, from organizing the Croatian Blues Challenge, concerts, new festivals, blues discography, radio broadcasts and, in the end and perhaps most importantly, working with children and the youth. For example, we will soon send the Youth Blues Band to the International Blues Challenge for the fourth time, and we will be the first European country to manage to do that. We will be presented with the Keeping The Blues Alive award, which we dedicate to our late founder Dražen Buhin, at a gala event on January 25,” said Hrepić.
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Translated from Večernji List.
