By Mark Darrough - July 21, 2019
WILMINGTON — A mile south of downtown Wilmington there’s an on old dive bar where — even if the air conditioning isn’t working on a Tuesday night — musicians take the stage for an open blues jam.
Pictures of blues legends like B.B. King line the bar’s walls and an old whiteboard displays a matrix of drummers, guitarists, vocalists, and harmonica players up next on the stage.
Lan Nichols, president of the Cape Fear Blues Society, said the Rusty Nail Saloon and its owner, Sandy Williams, have been hosting the jam nights for 19 years.
“There’s derivatives of blues music all over town and around the region, [but] it’s hard to find pure blues,” Nichols said.
He said the bar has taken the mantle as the place to go in town, and in the region, for musicians and listeners who want to hear good, old-fashioned blues music.
“You see some really interesting combinations of artists,” Nichols said. “People who come in from out of town and have never been here before, and they’ll get on stage with two or three artists who are here every week, and things just click. Things aren’t always perfect, but in the end it’s about spontaneity and people being happy on stage, and an audience that gets behind you and has a really good time.”
Harmonica player Jack Campbell was in town on work from Chesapeake, Virginia.
“I’ve been to blues jams all down the east coast, from Baltimore down to Florida, and this is as good or better than any,” Campbell said . “And it has stood the test of time, because I’ve been coming down here since the mid-90s.”
He said the bar stands out because it is well organized, offers its own equipment, attracts good musicians, and there are never any fights breaking out.
“Nobody gets their nose bent out of shape or anything,” Campbell said. “It’s just a laid back, beautiful dive bar.”
As the next group of musicians prepared to take the stage, Nichols talked about the bar’s role in representing Wilmington’s hidden blues community, and what defines blues music in the first place.
“The blues is not always happy, it’s not always sad, but the music tells a story,” Nichols said. “And there’s pretty much always an ending that everyone can live with one way or the other.”
[Read the story as published here.]