Award for Ealing Blues Festival Founder
Robert Salmons honoured for promoting live music and local music heritage
Bob Salmons with his Unsung Hero Award presented by Paul Jones
The founder of Ealing Blues Festival has been honoured with a UK Blues Award for his work in promoting live music and Ealing’s music heritage.
Robert Salmons, who performs under the name Robert Hokum, received the Unsung Hero from singer and radio personality Paul Jones at a packed event on 15 May at the PowerHaus Camden.
The award was presented on the same day as the launch of the book Rock's Diamond Year which features a chapter on his adolescence during Ealing's musical heyday,
He started the Ealing Blues Festival as a free event in Walpole Park in 1987 . It has grown to be one of the most established blues festivals in the UK and is now London’s longest-running Blues Festival.
Presenting the Award, Jones said, “The UK Blues Federation Unsung Hero award goes to someone who has worked tirelessly to promote, encourage and nurture blues musicians over a long period. He is a man who started the Ealing Blues Festival and co-founded the Ealing Blues Club Community Interest Company. He’s tireless promoter of the west London blues scene.”
Accepting his award, guitar-player Robert told the audience, “I don’t think the artistic elite in this country takes seriously enough the cultural contribution of British blues to world culture. This is an important but undervalued scene.
“In America they acknowledge that it was what happened here that made people globally aware of a lot of the great blues artists and we woke Americans up to their defining music form.”
He told the awards audience that Britain should learn from the US and how they link geography with cultural heritage saying, “Detroit, Chicago, Nashville and Memphis all do this well and we need to do it here. We can use that heritage to provide opportunities for new music and up-and-coming bands, which is how things progress.”
Robert said later, “I’m very honoured to be the first recipient of the Unsung Hero Award from the UK Blues Federation. This shows the blues community's appreciation of The Ealing Blues Festival being London's longest-running blues Festival and the importance of Ealing's musical heritage as featured in the film Suburban Steps to Rockland and the new book Rock's Diamond Year.”
He was born in Perivale Maternity Hospital in 1951 and brought up in Hanwell and West Ealing. After attending Ealing Grammar School he studied for an HND diploma in Business Studies at Twickenham College of Technology where he first became involved in music by becoming Social Secretary of the Student Union.
Alistair Young, co-founder Ealing Club Community Interest Company was there to see the award presentation and said afterwards: “Bob and I co-founded the CIC in December 2011 to highlight the area’s music heritage and to work to create better opportunities for live music performance.
“We started by raising the money for the blue plaque that’s now on the wall of the Ealing Club premises opposite Ealing Broadway Station and we helped to bring to the screen Suburban Steps To Rockland: The Story of the Ealing Club. However, as Bob told the UK Blues Awards, there’s still lots more to do to get west London the cultural respect it deserves for music.”
He’ll be performing as Robert Hokum with the Asian Blues fusion band Blues Dharma at the Jubilee event in Walpole Park on 5 June and with The Great West Groove Big Band at the two-day Ealing Blues Festival on Sunday 24 July.
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May 19, 2022