On Sunday 10/08/2006 was the first San Diego H.A.T. Awards.
The acronym stands for Honoring Acoustic Talent and it came about shortly after the San Diego Music Awards. This awards show is an attempt to more fully focus on Acoustic talent here in San Diego. It started with people in the community dropping their nominations in a hat. After that nominations were looked at and finalized on what categories would be honored and chosen. Then a website was put up for anyone privy to the URL (and if you went to any of the local shows that's where you would have found out), Where you could vote for your favorite artist for any or all the categories you were interested in. After the voting stopped and tallied the H.A.T Awards were presented in three different venues on three different nights. The Hot Java Cafe up in Carmel Mountain. At Lestat's West and finally at the Twigs Green Room.
Seven awards were given each night and in between award presentations. Live performances by many artists some of which were nominated were present to play for our enjoyment. On each night a compellation CD and T-shirt was being sold in order to raise money to help local artist with costs of producing CD..s and going on tours and other non-profit endeavors. You can still get a CD or T-shirt from their website at www.sandiegohatawards.com On top of the entertainment and the award presentations they were also selling raffle tickets with the proceeds going to the running of the show and to later go to the artist help fund. Or for a more in depth explanation of the organization go to San Diego H.A.T. Awards About Us Page
The Raffle was very well done and was due mostly to the efforts of Laura Kuebel another local artist singer/songwriter who got a lot of the sponsors to donate many very nice prizes. the first two night many ver nice prizes were awarded and the grand prize each evening was a Ukulele, but on the last night even though many of the prizes were fantastic . Many of us were vying for a very nice Acoustic Guitar donated by Freedom guitars a local store here in San Diego. Alas as badly as I wanted it I didn't win but I did win a nice female designer blouse which I promptly gave to Chelsea Flor for being so nice to give me a ride to all the events. Besides I am a big ugly man what would I do with a blouse [grin].
If you look below you will see all the categories that were voted in , who was in them and who won and the number after the one in bold is their final vote count. don't let the small numbers make you believe this was an unimportant little exercise in popularity. The web site got a lot of visitors from all over the U.S. and abroad. Next year promises bigger and better things and this was a very successful endeavor that only got around four weeks of planning and implementation and was sponsored by the Local newspaper, The Troubadour.
Below you will find the nominees and the winners:
Best Acoustic Group
Stir-Fry Rattlesnake
The Gooses
The Grams
2 Canary
Berkley Hart (162)
Jeff Kane
Best Acoustic Pop/Rock
JTurtle
Kyle Phelan (186)
Kim DiVine
Best Alt. Country
Jeff Kane
Kerri Dopart
Ryan Blue
The Coyote Problem (150)
Barbara Nesbitt
Cathryn Beeks
Charlie Reid
Best Americana
Cathryn Beeks
Alex Esther
Will Edwards
Aaron Bowen (161)
The Coyote Problem
Gregory Page
Best Backup Musician
Dave Sawyer (93)
Charlie Reid
Marcia Claire
Mike Spurgat
Rene Tornero
Simeon Flick
Steve Peavey
Heather Hartwick
Kim Bishop
Best Female Performer
Christiane Lucas
Jordan Reimer
Lindsay Hoehl
Rene Tornero
Steph Johnson
Jane Lui (177)
Jen Knight
Allegra Barley
Chelsea Flor
Best Female Singer/Songwriter
Christiane Lucas
Jordan Reimer
Kim DiVine (151)
Barbara Nesbitt
Lindsay Hoehl
Kerri Dopart
Best Female Vocalist
Lindsay Hoehl
Christiane Lucas
Kim DiVine (171)
Jordan Reimer
Kerri Dopart
Annie Bethancourt
Best Guitarist
Aaron Bowen (235)
Kev Rones
Dave Sawyer
Best Host
Tim Mudd
Isaac Cheong
Hot Rod Harris (122)
Nathan Welden
Jefferson Jay
John Ciccolella
Best Instrumentalist
Kev Rones
Richie Blue (174)
Ricky Ruiz
Tom Griesgraber
Best Male Performer
Josh Damigo (204)
Isaac Cheong
Rob Deez
Steve Poltz
Best Male Singer/Songwriter
Josh Damigo (186)
JTurtle
Will Edwards
Kyle Phelan
Taran Gray
Best Male Vocalist
Nathan Welden
Josh Damigo (169)
JTurtle
Kyle Phelan
Jason Law
Will Edwards
Best New Acoustic Artist
Josh Damigo (212)
Jordan Reimer
Stir-Fry Rattlesnake
Taran Gray
AJ Peacox
Best Piano/Keyboard
Jane Lui (191)
Darren Walde
Linda Sargent
Robert Hemmi
AJ Croce
Andrea Reschke
Chris Carpenter
Best Promoter
ListenLocalSD.com (189)
Beach Music Mafia
Broken Hills Productions
Danielle Lo Presti
Hot Rod Harris
Best Songwriter
JTurtle
Carlos Olmeda (231)
Keith Christmas
Pat Lanzetta
Jeff Kane
Best Venue
Twiggs Green Room
Cosmos
Lestat's West (243)
LifePoint Cafe
Best Young Musician
AJ Peacox (188)
Alize Rozsnyai
Chris Burgess
Lifetime Achievement
Gregory Page (169)
Hot Rod Harris
Isaac Cheong
Cathryn Beeks
Christopher Dale
Cindy Lee Berryhill
Well that's the lot! Next year ought to be fabulous, many of my favorite artist have new CD's coming out and the music just keeps getting better! I'm Out!
Ciao
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