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Tower Awards

The National Art & Soul Experience™ (ASX) honors national and global achievements in fields of Technology Entertainment Art and Marketing (T.E.A.M.).  This year, the grand finale of the ASX Fest 2022, will be the TOWER Awards show and honors program on Sunday, September 18, 2022 at the GEM Theater in Kansas City, MO.  Recipients honored with TOWER awards will be to two individuals–4x Grammy Award-winning Producer/Writer, Brian Kennedy and Hollywood rising star director, Morgan Cooper.  Plus, the R&B, Platinum-selling group, Bloodstone will also be recognized for their achievement and 60-Years in music.

You’ll discover more about each of these honorees, but we begin with Bloodstone.

 BLOODSTONE

Bloodstone is an American R&B, soul, and funk group. 2022 marks their 60^th year in music.  They still perform and woo crowds today, but their most popular years were the 1970s and early 1980s, where the band charted thirteen songs between 1973 and 1984.

Formed in 1962, in Kansas City, Missouri, the group was a high school doo-wop group called The Sinceres. In 1967-68 they were backed by and toured with a large Kansas City horn band known as the Smokin’ Emeralds and performed their version of a Motown-style review which drew large crowds at a venue called the Place in the Westport district of KC.

The group recorded for Decca, Epic-CBS, and Motown, performed with a list of artist that read like a who’s who, including Marvin Gaye, Elton John, Temptations, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan and many more. Despite the deaths of founding members Roger Durham, Melvin Webb, and Willis Draffen through the years, the ultra rich, magnetic Bloodstone sound never faltered nor lost its magic.

In 1973, “Natural High” became the group’s first and biggest hit yet, peaking at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #4 on the R&B singles chart that year. It also peaked at #20 on Billboard’s adult contemporary chart, and #40 on the UK chart; it received wide airplay on Radio Luxembourg in particular.

The album, also titled Natural High, sold more than a million copies and went to #2 on the R&B albums chart and #30 on the Billboard 200.

Bloodstone followed this with other hits such as “Never Let You Go” (#43 pop, #7 R&B), “Outside Woman” (#34 pop, #2 R&B), “That’s Not How It Goes,” (#82 pop, #22 R&B), and “My Little Lady,” (#57 pop, #4 R&B), among others. Their albums Unreal, I Need Time, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Do You Wanna Do a Thing? became hits on both pop and R&B albums chart.

The success and popularity of Bloodstone put them in the position as being one of the major forces of funk and so-called “black rock” movement in the 1970s. (mentalitch.com)

The band’s current members are Harry Williams and Donald Brown, after the 2022 passing of Charles McCormick, writer of their biggest hit, Natural High.  Other original members were Charles Love (lead vocal, guitar), Willis Draffen (18 March 1945, Kansas City, Missouri, USA, d. 8 February 2002, Kansas City, Missouri, USA; vocal, guitar), Eddie Summers (drummer) and Roger Lee Durham (b. 1946, d. October 1973).

For more information, contact: connect@asxnation.com.  For updates, stay tuned to the website and Facebook social media @asxnation.

For event tickets visit TOWER AWARDS SHOW