Talent Night and Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band

Barbara Branca

Would you like to show off your musical or other performing talent at Sea Grant Week 2012 Talent Night? Performance slots are a maximum of five minutes, less time is fine. The show, with professional Master of Ceremonies "Johnny B", happens after the Thursday night awards banquet, along with a performance by the Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band. Sign up below.

Join the Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band! The band will perform well-known Baby Boomer oldies rock 'n' roll and some classic blues tunes. Sign up below.

Questions? Contact Kurt at kurt.byers@alaska.edu, 907-474-6702.

Contact information



Talent show


Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band






The Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band

Anders and others in 2007 Anders Andren and others at Sea Grant Week 2007 in San Diego.

Photos and Video Clips of the Band

View photos of the Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band from 1997, 2005, and 2007, and a video clip [coming soon] from its performance at Sea Grant Week 2005 in Maine. Also check out an interview with Wisconsin Sea Grant director, Anders Andren, as he reminisces about the band. His remarks occur about 1 min. 35 sec. into the clip.

History

At Sea Grant Week 1995 in Puerto Rico, our network impresario (as tagged by New York's Barbara Branca), Kurt Byers, proposed pulling together a group of talented Sea Grant people to form a band to perform for fun and no profit at future Sea Grant Weeks. The talent and will always were there, but the hang-up was getting musical instruments and sound equipment—especially drums and sound equipment. In the following years, we instead decided to put on Sea Grant talent shows and/or hire bands, which did not require as much music hardware as the proposed Sea Grant band.

Wittman and Anders 1997Steve Wittman and Anders Andren in 1997.

The first Talent Night took place in Steve Wittman's favorite bierstube in downtown Madison, Wisconsin during Sea Grant Week 1997. As part of Talent Night, Steve and his director, Anders Andren, performed as a guitar duo, accompanied on a couple numbers by Steve's young children, playing some blues and classic rock. That was the prototype for what was later to become the Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band.

1999-2003

Sea Grant Week 1999 in Portland, Oregon, took place during the retro swing dance craze (remember the Brian Setzer Jump, Jive & Wail GAP TV commercial?). Kurt, founder and president of the University of Alaska Good Time Swing Dance Club, got the green light from the Planning Committee to find and hire a swing band and swing dance instructors to provide the after-banquet entertainment. The superb Swingline Cubs did the honors.

At Sea Grant Week 2001 at Hilton Head, South Carolina, we hired a band for the dance after the banquet.

At Sea Grant Week 2003 in Galveston, Texas, there was a talent show in the hotel lounge area that included Anders, Steve, Barbara, Mike Spranger, Ames Colt, Kola Garber, Barry Costa Pierce, and some other folks. In addition, for dancing after the banquet, we had the Texas A&M Jazz Band. Barbara sang a couple numbers with them.

A Vision Realized

SG band Maine 2007 The first Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band in 2005 in Maine.

It was Maine's Paul Anderson, a performing musician, who finally solved the musical equipment problem and cleared the way for the debut of the first, fully fledged Sea Grant blues band. Paul contacted his musician pals in Maine who donated use of all the instruments and sound equipment we needed. So, a decade after the idea was hatched, the vision from Sea Grant Week 1995 at last became reality! Washington Sea Grant's science writer and blues harmonica virtuoso and vocalist, David Gordon, dubbed the group the "Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band."

Not stopping there, David also penned and performed an original blues number, "Don't Work for Sea Grant Anymo'." Not to be outdone, Florida's Mike Spranger wrote and performed "The Sea Grant Blues."

See and hear these two seminal performances in a video clip [coming soon] from Talent Night at Sea Grant Week 2005 in Maine.

Leon Cammen and Steve WittmanLeon Cammen and Steve Wittman in 2007 at San Diego.

The band, led by Paul, performed again at Sea Grant Week 2007 in San Diego, but without drummer Jumpin' Jack Greer and bass guitar slinger, Dave "Stretch" Partee. On the plus side, this version of the band included National Sea Grant director Leon Cammen on acoustic guitar, marking the first time our national director played in the band.

With a plethora of evening entertainment options in New Orleans, we did not have our own evening musical entertainment or dance at Sea Grant Week 2010.

Girdwood 2012

And now, the latest edition of the Not So Muddy Waters Sea Grant Blues Band, once again led by Paul Anderson, will thrill and entertain us at Sea Grant Week 2012, immediately following the awards banquet on Thursday night, September 20.

The band will perform well-known Baby Boomer oldies rock 'n' roll and some classic blues tunes, and maybe a couple coffee shop type folky numbers. If you want to join the band, sign up here.