By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — Some leaf peepers might want to add the blues to their Sunday drive.

When someone moves into a new place, it’s typical to have a house warming. It’s taken a few years of making improvements; and now the Maine Blues Heritage Foundation is ready to show off its Hall of Fame to the public.

The open house is happening from 2 to 6 p.m. this Sunday.

The free event will include live acoustic music. There will be knowledgeable volunteers on hand to answer any questions. Still, people can tour the Hall of Fame on their own. Light refreshments such as beer, wine and soft drinks will be available. There is a cost for the alcohol.

The Hall of Fame is located in the brick building on the Naples Village Green property. The name of the access road is Village Green Lane — that’s the same driveway people take to get to the post office and the town hall. The building can be seen from Route 302. 

“We’re your neighbors. Come visit us,” said Kevin Kimball, of the Maine Blues Heritage Foundation.

He said he is excited to unveil the hall of fame to the public.

“We just felt that given the Naples community has been so welcoming to Maine blues artists, that Naples is the logical place to have a hall of fame,” Kimball said.

“It’s a perfect location,” he said. “Little by little, we’ve been doing upgrades. We did more painting this year. It’s coming along. It’s all volunteers so people get to it when they can.”

“The Hall of fame will feature displays of vintage musical equipment, posters, artifacts and biographies of Maine blues artists,” he said.

The Maine Blues Festival and the Maine Blues Heritage Foundation (MBHF) are two separate entities, Kimball explained.

The Maine Blues Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit. Last month, the foundation sponsored a fundraiser concert for the Maine-based Travis Mills Foundation. The concert raised $2,000 for Travis Mills Foundation. All of the musicians volunteered their time and provided the concert for free, Kimball said.

The upcoming open house is a way for residents to get to know what the MBHF does and plans to do, Kimball said.

“As a nonprofit, the foundation would like to reach out and do more things for the community,” he said.

“The open house is an opportunity for folks to come in and see what they’ve started,” Kimball said.

“It is by no means complete, it is slow process,” he added.

“What we would like to do in the future is we would like to have inductees — similar to the Country Music Hall of Fame — along that idea,” Kimball said.

On Sunday, some special souvenirs will be offered. People can purchase T-shirts and coffee mugs with the Maine Blues Heritage Foundation logo on them.

“If anyone wants the 2019 Maine Bluesfest T-shirts, we have some left over,” he said.

In the future, the MBHF plans to put together a website which will allow people to listen to blues tunes.

“It would be like an online music station with music from Maine blues artists, Kimball said.

Kimball described the primary goal of the nonprofit, something that is being achieved by having use of the building on the Village Green.

“The purpose of the foundation is to create and maintain a physical archive and showplace for Blues Music Hall of Fame members and to display historic memorabilia accumulated throughout the years of public entertainment in order to provide a museum for the general public to view and learn about the careers of leaders in blues music industry,” he said.