It may come as a surprise to outsiders that an affluent and tourist-flocked beach town like Santa Barbara — basking in its “American Riviera” clout — can also boast having produced important blues artists and culture. But this is the burg which produced Kim Wilson, a k a “Goleta Slim,” who went on to form the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and two of its other claims to bluesworld fame — former local Pontiax leader Mitch Kashmar and country-blues duo Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan hail from these parts.
It will be old worldly home week when Kashmar and Ball and Sultan play an eagerly awaited show at the Carrillo Recreation Center this Saturday, May 31, for the Santa Barbara Blues Society — which happens to be the oldest continuously running blues society in the United States. A mayoral certificate is in order: Santa Barbara officially has the blues and disseminates it out into a world in need of same.
Musical Family Cresting
