Product Description A Taste Of The Blue Rose by Various artists About the Artist 1. O.C. Thomas was born in rural Mississippi in 1925 and moved to Portland in the '40s. This CD contains his one and only published recording. He died in 2001. 2. Mel Solomon is revered around Portland (and beyond) for his bluesy singing style. He came up from Shreveport, Louisiana in the '40s. 3. Lily Wilde is a singing sensation who comes from a very musical background. Her bio includes being Stevie Wonder's backup singer and touring the world with him. Currently she likes to tear it up with her 13-piece Jumpin' Jubilee Orchestra. 4. Bob Shoemaker is known primarily as a master of the National asteel guitar -- but that doesn't diminish his stature as a singer any. 5. Jan Celt is the project's producer, and plays guitar in the house band as well as two tracks. He was born in Germany in 1955 and came out to Portland in the '70s to study music. After conducting the KOAP Channel 10 Studio Orchestra for a year, he went off in a new direction and founded his R & B band, the Esquires, with whom he recorded three albums. 6. Johnnie Ward lives in Astoria these days. He's been writing songs for decades and is a very funny guy, also a master of the tenor sax and a harmonica virtuoso. 7. Norman Moody is a workaday bluesman, playing the nightclubs and so on in Portland with his band, the Blues Forecast. 8. Rich Halley is an important jazz man, with about a dozen albums out under his own name or with the Lizard Brothers. He was a member of the original Esquires. 9. Chris Newman is one of the seminal figures in the musical movement which became known as "grunge." With his band, Napalm Beach, he set the tone for others to follow. Despite numerous recordings and four European tours, Chris is now living the homeless life.