Originally this festival started from a passion to improve the image of Lithgow. The now beautiful town had an image steeped in industrial history. Being the birthplace of the Australian Steel Industry with many mines (coal, kerosene, shale oil, diamonds, gold etc). The first freezer for ships was developed in Lithgow by Thomas Mort allowing Australia’s sheep and beef meat to be exported overseas. At the turn of the century Lithgow was the most industrialised city in Australia. With the industry also came incredible hardship for the workers and settlers. Because of this Lithgow became a natural birthplace for the early beginnings of the workers unions in Australia.

Because of it’s working class roots it seemed natural to relate this history to the blues. A small group of passionate enthusiasts set about promoting the first Lithgow Blues Music Festival in 1993. The aim of the festival was to bring the best of Australian Blues Talent to Lithgow to play in an ideal setting, and at the same time invite visitors to experience our industrial heritage. A logo of the guitar and miner’s pick were chosen to represent the ties with the working class and blues music. The open air venue at Tony Luchetti Sportsground presents a perfect setting, nestled with a backdrop of steep mountain surroundings and with superb sound production provides a natural amphi-theatre for the blues to envelop the valley.

The first festival in 1993 was a complete success and much encouragement was received from the Blues Industry around the country. After researching it was found that there were no major popular vote Blues Music Awards in Australia. The first Australian Blues Music Awards were held at the 1994 festival. Nominations were called for by advertisement in Australian Jazz & Blues, Drum Media and forms distributed to Blues Societies and major retail outlets and major ‘Blues on Air’ Radio stations. The response was amazing. To be fair to the industry the top nominations were then voted on by telephone conference with industry representatives from each state.

The Australian Blues Music Award Trophy was designed locally and features gold plated skip rail from the original State Mine in Lithgow Valley and mounted on polished wood taken from the original pit props used in the mine.

In 1997, Award nomination forms were sent to every ‘Blues on Air’ Radio Station (approximately 145) in Australia, advertised in the Drum Media and Sydney’s Beat and On the Street magazines and distributed by direct mail to past festival patrons and generally dropped where ever we could physically get them to ( we distributed over 28,000 fliers throughout Australia). In 1997 the awards Nomination Form was available on the Internet. Once again an overwhelming response with thousands of nominations being received. A local committee took three hours to sort each category and came up with the top nominations in each category. These were then faxed these back to industry representative of Blues Societies and Radio Stations in each state for their vote. From this the category winners were selected.

It is hoped that these efforts will demonstrate the need for an category award in for Blues Music in higher places, for its believed that the Australian Blues music fans will demonstrate by popular vote. There is so much talent here on our own soil, why go overseas to find what we already have here.

At the moment proceeds are donated to local charities who help to run the festival on the weekend. It is hoped that eventually the festival will raise enough to fund a scholarship for young musicians to help ‘keep the blues alive’

by Debra Morris
From Lithgow, the ‘Heart of Australian Blues Music‘,

E-mail: Debra Morris.
Australian Blues Music Awards
Lithgow Tourism Information

A special thank you to Glenn Nelson from Highway 49, who has given untold encouragement in writing the Lithgow Blues Festival History.