The Cause

The Rocky Mountain Bass Slam is a celebration of the bass guitar!

The Slam also raises funds in order to donate some bass guitar equipment to local beneficiaries:  Our goal is to put a bass guitar in the hands of youth who normally may not have access to the beautiful instrument of the bass.

Your attendance and support of the Slam will help us to help others!!

Our Annual Beneficary



This year's beneficiary will be the Blue Star Connection - www.BlueStarConnection.org



The Blue Star Connection mission is to provide access to musical instruments for children with life threatening illness through a personal instrument for home use or through sponsored Children's Hospitals or similar programs, primarily in the USA.

BSC is non profit organization that brings music into the lives of children and young adults who are fighting cancer and other life challenging situations.

We also work with musical therapists in various hospitals and clinics, and host fundraisers in many cities around the county to raise funds and awareness of our cause.

HOW DID BLUE STAR CONNECTION START?

On August 14th, 2005, the Grand County Blues Society was performing for a local group having a reunion of cancer kids called the Shining Stars Foundation. After the show was over I struck up a conversation with a 17 yr old cancer patient Colin Connors from Denver Colorado. I asked him if he played guitar, his replied that he did. I asked him if he had a guitar and his answer was ” a beat up old acoustic”. I asked him if he would play an electric guitar if he had one and he answered “anything to brighten my day”.

I then ask him “what color”, he looked at his mom and she smiled and said, “baby blue, like his eyes”.

A week later someone donated a baby blue Ibenez electric guitar. We knew it was meant to go to Colin. We surpised him a few days later with the guitar and a donated amp. A good deed was complete.

In a few weeks we received an email from a doctor, Larry McCleary, he had worked with Colin and kids with cancer for decades. His message was profound. He had seen a dramatic change in Colin’s outlook. In the weeks ahead we recieved messages from Colin that he had found other kids his age who would like to have a guitar. We continued to round up guitars and in a few months we had 5 new kids. Blue Star was born and the story continues to evolve!

HOW DID BLUE STAR GETS ITS NAME?

We let the first few kids work on the name. We came up with “Blue” for the music we love, “Star” because the kids were Stars and “Connection” because we were going to connect them to music and to each other!

Our Blue Star from India ,Sneha was working on our logo when she passed away. It is the symbol that defines her vision of what Blue Star meant to her.

THE BLUE STARS

We have provided guitars, basses, harmonicas, violins, keyboards, flutes and drum kits to over 60 kids in the program. We have Blue Stars in Colorado , Texas, California, Washington, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Florida, Illinois, South Dakota, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oklahoma, Oregon, Arizona and once upon a time we had a beautiful girl named Sneha from New Delhi India.

We have lost seven of our Blue Stars. Devon, Sneha, Brandon, Shakiri, Adam, Amanda and Trevor. They are always with us as Blue Stars and their loved ones cherish the instrument that brought some peace and music to their loved ones.

CHILDRENS HOSPITALS

In the past few years we have donated multiple instrument packages to numerous Music Therapists working in Children’s Hospitals in Dallas, Denver, Cincinatti, Oakland, Pittsburg, Vanderbilt at Nashville, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Seattle. Each hospital has given us a list according to their needs. We fill the list and add a few more items, and enjoy hearing of the great success stories the therapists have had with their patients.