PATRICIA WILSON ADEN ♫♫ Meet the New President of the Blues Foundation
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PATRICIA WILSON ADEN ♫ Meet The New President Of The Blues Foundation ♫ The Blues Music Award Nominees ♫ #27 CD Sampler With 14 Blues Songs To Download Order Today Click Here! Four Print Issues Per Year Every January, April, July, and October get the Best In Blues delivered right t0 you door! Artist Features, CD, DVD Reviews & Columns. Award-winning Journalism and Photography! Order Today Click Here! 20-0913-Blues Music Magazine Full Page 4C bleed.indd 1 17/11/2020 09:17 THE TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2020 BLUES MUSIC ONLINE FEBRUARY 07, 2021 - Issue 26 Table Of Contents 06 - PATRICIA WILSON ADEN Meet The New President Of The Blues Foundation By Art Tipaldi 21 - THE BLUES MUSIC AWARD NOMINEES 34 - BLUES MUSIC STORE Various New & Classic CDs On Sale 38 - CD & BOOK REVIEWS By Various Writers & Editors 55 - BLUES MUSIC SAMPLER CD Sampler 27 - October 2020 - Download 14 Songs COVER & TOC PHOTO COURTESY © BLUES FOUNDATION Read The News Click Here! All Blues, All The Time, AND It's FREE! Get Your Paper Here! Read the REAL NEWS you care about: Blues Music News! FEATURING: - Music News - Breaking News - CD Reviews - Music Store Specials - Video Releases - Festivals - Artists Interviews - Blues History - New Music Coming - Artist Profiles - Merchandise - Music Business Updates PATRICIA WILSON ADEN Welcome To Memphis, TN By Art Tipaldi PHOTO COURTESY © BLUES FOUNDATION Blues Music Magazine: Can you tell our readers where you grew? Patricia Wilson Aden: I grew up in Newark, Delaware. I am very proud that my family can trace its roots back to the 1820s in Newark. It is very rare for any family, but especially an African American family, to have a 200-year history in a single town. During those two centuries the Wilson family has left its imprint on Newark, Blues Music Magazine: What was the music you grew up listening to? Patricia Wilson Aden: I don’t come from a musical family. As would be typical of many middle-income African American families during the 1960s, the majority of our music came from Black radio which was always on in the car and often on in our home. Also like most families during the 1960s, we had the entire library of Disney movie soundtrack albums. To this day I can sing along to most songs from Disney’s classic movies. Blues Music Magazine: What is your relationship to music? are you a musician, vocalist or just an obsessed fan? Patricia Wilson Aden: I am actually none of those thing. Although I took piano lessons as a child it quickly became clear I had no talent. My parents had me take lessons because they believed that music lessons were supposed to be part of their children’s upbringing and education. Music didn’t make a deep impression on my early life, but as result I was able to develop my own eclectic music tastes as an adult. Blues Music Magazine: What are the most important life events where music has played an essential role? Patricia Wilson Aden: Music concerts are interwoven with my childhood memories. My father was the first African American administrator at the University of Delaware and in that role, he emphasized the need for cultural events for the university’s first generation of African American students. Because of my father’s role, my sister and I regularly attended many of the cultural events presented at the university – poetry readings, plays and concerts. I believe that the first large musical concert I ever attended was a James Brown concert at the University of Delaware’s fieldhouse when I was about 8 years old. I also remember being taken to Philadelphia’s historic Uptown Theatre to see the Motown Revue with the Temptations, the Miracles and other Motown acts all on the same bill. Blues Music Magazine: What led you to become involved in more of an administrative role with music? Patricia Wilson Aden: My role as an administrator of a music organization came about as part of the evolution of my career in the non-profit sector. I often speak to student groups and I tell them that they shouldn’t expect their career paths to be linear, going in a straight line from one position to the next. My career certainly hasn’t unfolded in that way. I started my career in historic preservation and came to understand that what I enjoyed most was managing preservation organizations. Over the course of my career I have been privileged to hold leadership positions in historic preservation and museums, as well as music organizations. The consistent thread is that I have always run non-profit organizations that focus on the preservation and celebration of cultural resources – whether its historic architecture, fine art or music. Over the years I have come to specialize in organizations that celebrate African American cultural resources, including Rhythm & Blues and Blues music. Blues Music Magazine: Tell our readers a little about your role as Executive Director of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. how long did you hold that position? What were some of major accomplishments during your tenure? Patricia Wilson Aden: My association with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation is illustrative of the non-linear path that I alluded to earlier. I was President of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia when we sold legendary R&B producer Kenny Gamble an historic theatre. Mr. Gamble envisioned the theater as the centerpiece of a music district he hoped to develop in South Philadelphia. He recruited me to lead the strategy to make Philadelphia “The Home of Rhythm & Blues.” Bringing the Rhythm & Blues Foundation to Philadelphia was an integral component of our strategy. When the Rhythm & Blues Foundation found itself in need of an Executive Director, Mr. Gamble asked me to take on the role in a temporary executive loan arrangement. What was supposed to be a three-month assignment became a three-year commitment. While I was there, we presented the Pioneer Awards and I proudly served as Executive Producer for shows that included major artists such as Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Bill Withers, Bonnie Raitt and Chaka Khan. We also honored legendary artists such as Sugar Pie DeSanto who brought the house down by doing a flip in the middle of her performance. We partnered with Amtrak to bring several of the artists to Philadelphia from New York on what we called “The Love Train.” That 1 ½ hour train ride turned into a raucous reunion. Of course, the most important work that we did was to provide grants to address the medical and financial needs of artists. Similar to the Blues Foundation, we also helped pay for the funerals of R&B artists to ensure that they had the dignified burials that they deserved. Blues Music Magazine: Tell our readers a little about your role as President & CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia. how long did you hold that position? what were some of the major accomplishments during that tenure? Patricia Wilson Aden: I worked at the African American Museum for ten years and served as the museum’s President & CEO for eight of those ten years. One of my first major accomplishments was to bring an exhibition of the gowns of the Supremes to the museum. The exhibit, entitled “Come See About Me,” was a blockbuster that attracted a wonderfully diverse crowd that included baby-boomers who grew up with the music, fashionistas who loved the artistry of the gowns, and historians who enjoyed the stories of the civil rights movement that were interwoven into the exhibit’s narrative. I like to think that presenting exhibitions and programs like “Com See About Me” that attract broad audiences by addressing substantive issues in engaging ways was the hallmark of my tenure at the museum. We also built a reputation for not shying away from challenging issues. The museum became known as “the comfortable place for uncomfortable conversations.” Blues Music Magazine: What was it about the Blues foundation that inspired you to apply for this position? Patricia Wilson Aden: My move to The Blues Foundation resulted from the happy confluence of time and opportunity. After ten years at the museum I was ready for my next professional adventure. My son had graduated from college and started his first job, so I wasn’t tied to my role as parent as I was while he was growing up. Perhaps most significantly, leading The Blues Foundation would allow me to draw upon many aspects of my experience and expertise. My expertise in non-profit management, my role at the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, and my experience running a museum are all relevant. Blues Music Magazine: What are some of the skills you bring to the Foundation that will facilitate it as it moves forward? Patricia Wilson Aden: Organizations need different types of leaders as they evolve. I have the good fortune to have the opportunity to build upon the great work of my predecessors at The Blues Foundation. I hope to apply the best practices in non-profit management to ensure The Blues Foundation’s programming has meaningful impact and that the organization has long-term sustainability. I hope my museum experience will benefit The Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame museum. The Blues Foundation’s collection is an underutilized asset that I hope will be prioritized in the future. Blues Music Magazine: What are the major challenges you see in the future for the Foundation? Patricia Wilson Aden: As the genre’s foremost non-profit organization, The Blues Foundation has a responsibility to address the issues that are most critical to the blues community.