Music Maker Says Goodbye to Longtime Partner & Festival Director Norman Hewitt
inTheir Adventureson October 10, 2017
Carl Hodges & Norman Hewitt | photo by: Timothy Duffy
We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of longtime friend and partner Norman Hewitt. In 1991, Norman took a chance booking an unknown bluesman named Guitar Gabriel for the Blues to Bop Festival in Lugano, Switzerland. At the time I was 28 years old, just a kid, trying to help an old bluesman get his time in the spotlight. Norman was from England and came of age in the first blues revival in London in the early 1960s and never wavered of his love of the most obscure original real deal blues and gospel artists.
Norman booked so many Music Maker artists, being proud to bring them to Europe for the first time artists such as Mr. Q, Precious Bryant, Cootie Stark, Mudcat, Ironing Board Sam, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Albert White, Carl Hodges, Big Boy Henry is just a short list of the artists he helped Music Maker with!
In August, the Glorifying Vines Sisters traveled from Farmville, NC to play the 29th annual Blues to Bop. Norman amazing life and work provided a unique cultural exchange – not only for the the audiences, but also the artists themselves, many of which had never been outside of the US before traveling to Lugano to perform for Piazzas full of people.
Norman’s early support helped form the idea for Music Maker and gave way to 23 years of performances all over Europe for the forgotten blues people of the American South and helped create an organization that has helped hundreds
THANK YOU NORMAN!
— Timothy Duffy
