Weekly blues jam at Auburn club wraps with five-hour marathon

AUBURN – Guitarist Kevin Kimball rose to the tiny stage – his Thursday night home for five years – and said goodbye.

“This is it, boys and girls,” said Kimball, a sparrow-thin figure in a natty black suit. “We’re going out in style.”

A moment later, his four-member band erupted.

Joined by bassist Marty Lynch, drummer Bub Lynch and singer Deb Danuski, Kimball ripped through a version of the little-known blues song, “Robbing the Cradle.”

“We knew that this was for keeps,” Kimball said of the opening song, performed with the intensity of a finale.

Instead, what followed was a five-hour marathon, bringing 30 musicians to the Midnight Blues stage.

Kimball titled it “The Last Blues Jam.”

The event capped five years of weekly jams at the club, scheduled to close tonight.

Since Midnight Blues opened in downtown Auburn, Kimball has led local musicians – veterans and newcomers alike – onto the club stage.

“This is the blues at its most elemental,” said Kimball, a part-time player for decades. Stars belong on other stages, with fancy lights and big marquees. Here, musicians play for free, just because they like the feeling that comes with making the music.

“We don’t go bowling,” Kimball said. “We’re not the funny-hat club.”

Instead, they become addicted to the music that so many people misperceive as sad and gloomy.

“It’s a disease,” joked Kimball, whose day job takes him to Southern Maine Community College, where he teaches physics. “I’ve played beside a lawyer, a chiropractor, an unemployed guy and a convenience store clerk.”

Despite the lack of stars, fans follow. Ron and Rachel Hamilton attended many of the club’s jams.

The Oxford couple credited Kimball, who organized the jams, with its five-year run.

“He’s the most sincere blues artist I have ever met,” Ron Hamilton said. “His energy for promoting the blues is huge.”

Regular performer Chad Thorne of Pittston called Kimball “the fairest jam organizer in Maine.” He had no favorites. Everybody got their time on stage.

Not that Kimball didn’t covet the stage.

“I was the first person to play here,” he said before Thursday night’s finale.

“Tonight is a celebration of the blues,” he told the crowd. “It is not a dirge, a wake or a funeral.”

Thursday’s blues were jubilant and intense.

After a 20-minute set with the house band, Kimball left the stage, replaced by a trio led by veteran Arlo West.

“Arlo came out with fangs,” Kimball said. By 9 p.m., before a full house, the bearded rocker was playing through a short set that included Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Born on the Bayou.”

So many players – about twice the usual number – followed.

They ended a few minutes past 1 a.m. with a bit of New Orleans. Their last song was, appropriately, “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

It will not be a permanent goodbye, though.

Within a month, Kimball hopes to have another venue to hold his jam.

“I will find a place for these guys,” he said, without a hint of retreat. “The blues isn’t going away.”