It may seem a contradiction, but I’m sure you’ve experienced it yourself. Blues music actually makes people happy and drives sadness out the door. And despite its roots in slavery, the creative power and generosity of Black culture transformed their struggle into music capable of moving us all.

Norman Sylvester has been providing Portland audiences with that Blues power since 1984, when he and bassist Rob Shoemaker started the Norman Sylvester Band. And Sunday, March 16, at the Alberta Rose Theater, along with his current group and others who have performed with the band (a total of 18 musicians), he celebrated 40 years as a leader. 

It was a full house, and many in the mostly older crowd had been listening to the guitarist, singer and songwriter for years, even decades. They came ready for a good time, too, and lots of cheers went up even before the band took the stage — they even cheered me, the MC.

As I watched them dance and clap and even sing along to some of the more than 20 Sylvester originals in a show that ran for more than three and one-half hours, I realized that this was more than a musical event; it was a re-enactment of the bonds of loyalty and affection between an artist and an audience.

The bond

“We just love Norman,” one couple said as we left the venue. “We’ve been following him for years.” The band notices it too.

“Norman keeps going back to the power of music to impact people,” harmonica player Kim Field said. Shoemaker concurred: “The best thing about working with Norman,” he said “is the respect he has for the audience.”

It was also clear that the same sort of bond exists between the bandleader and those who have performed with him. “I enjoy performing with Norman because of his authenticity,” said vocalist LaRhonda Steele, who’s had a long career in Blues and R&B in Portland. “He is exactly off-stage as he is on-stage.”

Guitarist Jay “Bird” Koder, currently with the Gino Vanelli Band and a long-time Sylvester associate, developed a bond with him even before Sylvester had a band. “We had this thing together, this symbiosis,” Koder remembered. And they renewed it Sunday night, when they descended from each side of the stage in tandem, trading licks on wireless guitars, until they came together down front for a duet on the ballad “Where Can I Hide.”

“Beyond that,” added Koder, “Norman is just a beautiful man. He’s been a tireless servant of the community, and he’s very spiritual, very deep, and I love him to death.”

The magic guitar

The story of the Norman Sylvester Band really begins in 1957, when he arrived with his family at Union Station, a shy nine-year-old from the farmlands of Louisiana who’d never attended an integrated school before. And that was a big change. But it was the guitar he received the next year that really altered the course of his life.

“It was my Captain America shield,” he laughs, and that $11.95 instrument gave him the confidence to overcome his shyness. 

Then fellow guitarist Issac Scott showed him how to come out from behind it. “We became like brothers,” Sylvester remembers, and they’d sit on the porch at his house on NE 9th and Going jamming for hours at such volume that people heard them down the block and came by to listen. “All these years,” Norman says, “I’ve been trying to play like Issac.”

He began performing part-time while working at a trucking company and writing poems on his breaks. By 1987, he’d turned those poems into the songs his band performed at the first Waterfront Blues Festival. And then they opened for B.B. King at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. They were rolling.

But the real turning point came in 1990, when the trucking company declared bankruptcy. That left Norman in the dislocated worker program, where he found that he didn’t need a new career — he had his band.

“I started getting calls,” he remembers. “I’m 79 now, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing yet.”

Over those four decades — as an entertainer, father of seven children, and member of the Teamsters and Musicians unions — he has become an integral part of the city: he even appears in a huge mural at the Portland airport. He’s released five albums, including the latest, Live at Burnt Barn Studio. His band has played union picnics, the Iliani casino, and lots of taverns and corporate events as well as countless benefits for ailing colleagues, and notably, for Health Care for All Oregon for ten years.

“We sang ‘Healing the Healthcare Blues’ on the steps of the state capitol for rallies,” he recalled. “Everybody in, nobody out, healthcare is a human right.” He’s a member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and in 2023, he received the Diversity Advocate award from the American Federation of Musicians. He is part of the Blues in the Schools program, too.

“He always shows up for the community in every way,” said vocalist Arietta Ward (aka Miss Etta). He’s mentored a number of younger musicians, too, like Patrick Lamb and two of the performers on Sunday, Ms. Steele and Ms. Ward.

“Norman taught me so much about professionalism,” Steele said, “about showing up on time and looking good and about doing your job. No matter what the conditions, whether he’s ill or whatnot, Norman pushes through.”

And Ms. Ward, the oldest daughter of the late keyboard player and composer Janice Scroggins, a former member of the band, also credits the man she calls Uncle Norman with showing her “how to present myself. He is one of my fashion blueprints,” she said. “We take pride in how we look.” 

Sunday night Sylvester wore a peach-colored suit with shoes to match and white spats. “I have countless suits,” he told me. “And thousands of ties.”

Songs in the key of life

While Blues bands are often content to reprise classic material, Sylvester’s original songs, mostly drawn from his life experiences, seem to touch his audience more, especially when he prefaced them with brief stories about their origins. “Piece of the Action,” he explained, was written when he was supporting his young family. “I was broke all the time,” he said, and described some of the menial jobs he’d held in those days as well as how he was inspired by the poems of Langston Hughes.

“I saw my congressman coming out of a limousine,” goes one of the verses, “A big smile on his face / He was a lookin’ mighty clean. / When he walked by me / I grabbed his arm / I said, ‘You’re livin’ real good, boy / Why don’t you give me some?”

The first set also included another Sylvester favorite, “Look on the Bright Side,” a paean to the hopeful outlook that’s characteristic of a number of his songs. With Ms. Steele singing lead, it was one of several numbers that drew more than just  sustained applause.

Steele and Sylvester’s daughter, Lenanne Sylvester-Miller, harmonized on “Turn a Spark into a Flame,” one of several songs written during the 11 years the band played at the historic Candlelight nightclub near Portland State. Their weekly performances in the 1990s and early 2000s — and the live album they recorded there — were key to the band’s development and financial success.

“We grew there,” Sylvester recalled. “It was a wonderful place for me; it kind of set me up for the rest of my life. That’s where I met Paula, too,” he said of his wife, whose business background has helped in her managerial and other duties for the band. And at the Candlelight he made contact with fraternity members who hired them for parties and with other college-age folks who later hired the band for private events and weddings.

In memoriam

One of the most moving moments on Sunday was a tribute to members who had passed away. Earlier, Sylvester had given a heartfelt speech about keeping family close, at one point stopping as he began to cry. The crowd cheered in sympathy.

“They were more than bandmates,” he said of his departed colleagues, “they were family,” and while their photos appeared on a big screen behind the stage, Sylvester and four women walked slowly down the aisles, trading verses on “A Change Is Gonna Come.” 

“When I play the songs I played with them,” he said about members who have passed or left the band, “I can still hear their contribution in my mind and in my soul.”

Those women’s voices were a big part of the show on Sunday. In fact, the band once featured three women backup singers he called the Sweet Thangz, and when they left he felt a void that was filled again on Sunday, when they joined him for several songs, including “I Believe,” a show-stopper where Sylvester was weaving lines like “I believe in you,” and “I believe in the community” into and around the refrain, “I believe, yes I believe.”

A family affair

The concert was a tightly-scripted affair, like all the Sylvester themed concerts that I’ve attended, and on Sunday, with his careful planning, the supportive musicians, and the help of his stage manager, they were able to shuttle five different drummers, four saxophonists, two keyboard players, harp and guitar players as well as the singers on and off stage without loss of momentum. He also made sure to give each performer their props.

It fits his philosophy for running a band. 

“I don’t believe in side persons,” he told me. “We’re all standing there side-by-side, and everybody’s bringing something to the table. I try to tap into the strength of every musician and use it wisely. Of course I instruct them on what I need, but they feel like they’re contributing to the process. And that bonds us together. It’s more a family affair for us, man.”

And family was a theme throughout. 

“I’ve been surrounded by people who are caring and loving and dependable,” he said. “Rob [Shoemaker] is invaluable to me. He’s the brother I never had. We collaborate on all aspects of the band. And capable women have been a blessing in my life,” he added. “LaRhonda, my daughter, Janice, my grandmother, my mother, my three sisters.”

When the concert was scheduled to end, Sylvester said, “I know we have to get out of here, but I just want to keep playing,” and he launched another song, and then a finale for which all the musicians assembled on stage. The audience rose to their feet, and then boogied off into the night, expectations fulfilled.

After 40 years leading a band, various illnesses and surgeries, some artists would consider hanging it up. But not Sylvester. He’s always looking forward. “Music is a blessed journey,”  he says, “and I’m still reaching for the stars.”