Thursday blues jam returns to its old stage at the Midnight Special in Auburn

AUBURN – Kevin Kimball paints his return with precision: friends’ smiling faces, the faint smell of beer and a specific rollicking song.

“There’s only one choice: ‘Every day I have the blues,'” he said.

On Thursday, the B.B. King standard will re-ignite a weekly blues jam that lasted for five years at Auburn’s Midnight Blues Club.

It will happen at the same stage. The club, which served as a restaurant for several months, recently reopened as the Midnight Special.

“That little corner stage was home for five years,” Kimball said. “Going back is going to feel so good.”

The departure hurt.

“It had become more of a landmark than I realized,” he said.

The Thursday night jam was a fixture among local blues artists and blues lovers before the club abruptly closed last October. For the musicians, playing short sets for free had become a substitute for joining a lodge or a bowling league.

Their last jam served as a loud farewell, a five-hour marathon with 30 performers before a packed house.

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

Their last song was “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Kimball, who plays guitar with several groups: Blue Steel Express, Kevin and the Steeldrivers and the Mojo Romeos, had hoped to continue the jam somewhere else.

“I vowed that I would find a place,” he said.

There were lots of talks with club owners, but he never found the right fit. Meanwhile, buddy Tom O’Connell put together a jam at a Gardiner brew pub. It was going well until about a month ago, when the pub closed.

Soon after, Midnight Special owner Dion Davis called. It all fit.

Kimball joined with O’Connell to start the new jam. The kickoff will be Thursday night.

“We haven’t had a lodge meeting in a long time,” said Kimball, a graying boomer.

Word is being spread among local singers, harmonica players, bassists, drummers and guitarists.

“We network,” Kimball said. “Everybody’s got a phone tree.”

Along with the musicians, he hopes to draw some of his old audience. He knew many of the regulars at the old jam by their first names.

“I hope to look out and see a bunch of smiles from old friends,” he said. “It’s all about making everybody feel welcome.”

He plans to be among the first people to take the stage. However, he has trouble predicting exactly who will be playing at his side.

“It’s almost like quantum physics,” said Kimball, whose day job is teaching physics at Southern Maine Community College. “You can never predict the behavior of an individual particle.”