(SANTA MONICA, CA) – The oldest blues club in Los Angeles, dating back to 1931, is now going to be what is likely the first blues club in the world to become a 501(c)(3) non-for-profit.
Harvelle’s has held a popular charity event every Tuesday, the well-known “Service Your Soul“, where the cover charge of $5 or two cans of food has been used to directly feed the hungry and enabled musicians to teach music and donate instruments to foster children through Magic Music Foundation.
Now, Service Your Soul is being made into a 501(c)(3) non-profit thanks to the efforts of “Service” host band, Hunter & The Dirty Jacks and the generous pro-bono work of a prestigious area law firm. In addition, Service Your Soul has reached an exclusive agreement with Harvelle’s to transform both it’s Santa Monica and Long Beach clubs into 501(c)(3) non-profit clubs, similar, but on a smaller scale, to the Apollo Theater.
This would make the pair of sister bars the first blues clubs in the world to be non-profit.
The goal is to preserve the “soul of American music” and to ensure it is being played every day for the people that want it — all while helping people in need.
Hosted every Tuesday by Hunter and the Dirty Jacks, a regionally touring blues/rock band from L.A., Service Your Soul has brought prestigious like-minded guest artists to donate their time and music to the cause. Among them are Coco Montoya, Eric Sardinas, Phil Gates, Walter Trout, Ty Taylor from Vintage Trouble, Guitar Shorty, and many, many more. Sardinas went to the area shelters to serve homemade mashed potatoes and chicken; Walter Trout and his family served Italian food.
Host band Hunter & the Dirty Jacks’ members personally travel to shelters, cook, serve and play for the hungry, as well as teach foster children music. “The most powerful thing we can do with our time on Earth is to help each other,” said Hunter Ackerman, frontman for Hunter & The Dirty Jacks.
Jon Siembieda, co-founder for Hunter & The Dirty Jacks, added, “this is a tremendous need right in our backyards. Los Angeles County has the highest number of homeless people in the United States. We want to do more to reach out and take care of those that have fallen under hard times in our community. In addition, we want to expand the Harvelle’s brand, the oldest blues club in Los Angeles, to every metropolitan area that needs help taking care of the underserved.”
The previous band to hold the Tuesday residency, then called “Trouble Tuesdays”, at Harvelle’s was Vintage Trouble, the sensational and explosive band from L.A. that has recently toured with both The Who and The Rolling Stones. “It helps the homeless, they bring in money and it goes to them,” said guitarist Nalle Colt to the American Blues Scene in August. “I think it’s an amazing gig.”
Future plans include setting up a non-profit record label and artist management company in which profits support the artists rather than the entity, with a portion of the profit donated to feeding the hungry and teaching music to foster children.
