April 18, 2018
edition
CAREERS special
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Page 13
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Concert
with a
Cause
Inner City
Blues a push
for universal
healthcare
by d anny P eterson
t he P ortland o bserver
Seeing families overcome with
medical costs due to chronic ill-
ness or injury and being forced
to take extreme measures just to
stay healthy was an all too famil-
iar to Oregon Music Hall of Fame
alum and blues Norman Sylvester.
That’s why he and other support-
ers for universal healthcare de-
cided to do something about it by
throwing an annual music festival
to support the cause.
The seventh annual Inner City
Blues - Healing the Healthcare
Blues Festival is this Saturday,
April 21 at the North Portland
Eagles Lodge, supporting Health
Care for All Oregon, an organi-
zation advocating for healthcare
coverage for everyone.
The event will bring together
a dozen renowned musicians of
blues and other genres. Doors
open at 5 p.m. and the concert will
run until midnight.
“The Inner City Blues Festival
is my passion to keep healthcare
affordable,” Sylvester told the
Portland Observer. “We just want
people to be able to have health-
care without a second mortgage
on their home and filing bankrupt-
cy. We want people to be able to
get routine medical examinations,
which keeps them ahead of the
battle of fighting serious illness-
es.”
The musician and songwriter,
who has lived in Portland for the
last 40 years, cites a quote from
civil rights leader Dr. Martin Lu-
ther Jr. to highlight healthcare’s
role as a social justice issue.
“Of all forms of inequality, in-
justice in healthcare is the most
shocking and inhuman,” King
said at a convention of the Med-
ical Committee for Human Rights
in Chicago on March 25, 1966.
Sylvester, 72, moved by the
need, has played benefit shows
for his musician friends suffering
from medical conditions over the
years. Many of them first discov-
ered through emergency services
that they had serious illnesses like
stage three cancers or diabetes,
and then could not afford to pay
for treatment.
“Some of those benefits to raise
money for healthcare turned into
celebrations of life because it was
too late. That kind of thing sad-
dens me,” Sylvester said.
Had those friends gotten to
a doctor sooner, they might’ve
nipped their ailments in the bud
sooner, Sylvester explained. But
lack of affordable care for even
routine check-ups caused their
diseases to progress without their
knowing.
The retired truck driver, who
now plays music full time and
teaches music and songwriting to
kids at Irvington School, first ar-
rived to Oregon in 1957 from Lou-
isiana. It was his first introduction
to attending an integrated school,
among other firsts. Sylvester at-
tended Jefferson High School and
graduated with the class of 1963.
“It was a whole new world for
me,” he said.
Sylvester had sung all his life
growing up in church choirs in
Louisiana and continued his in-
volvement with music when he
attended a church on North Wil-
liams and Wygant Street.
A friend from church, Isaac
Scott, who would later become
known as the King of Seattle
Blues, began giving Sylvester gui-
tar lessons with an acoustic guitar
his father bought him.
“He told me if I learned four
songs he would buy me an elec-
C ontinued on P age 19
Norman Sylvester overcome with emotion after singing in tribute to the late Janice Scroggins and
Linda Hornbuckle at the Waterfront Blues Festival in 2015. A staple of the Portland blues scene for
the past 40 years, Sylvester will front a Saturday benefit concert with more than a dozen of other
musicians in a push for universal healthcare.
The King Louie Pain Quartet with La Rhonda Steele will be part of the lineup for the annual Inner City
Blues – Healing the Healthcare Blues Festival, Saturday, April 21 at the North Portland Eagles Lodge.