wmra and Clementine Café present 30 years of Blues Valley with Professah Blues, Greg Versen. Celebrate Sat., Jan. 25 at 9 pm at Clementine Café (153 S Main St, Harrisonburg) with special musical guest “Nashville Bluesman” Stacy Mitchhart. $10 cover donation for wmra Public Radio.
Photographer, teacher, veteran and radio host Greg Versen is described as “one of the few true renaissance men” by wmra Executive Director Al Bartholet. Versen served four years as a Captain, Medical Services Corps, U.S. Army and one year with the Correctional Training Facility, Fort Riley, Kansas, for which he was awarded an Army Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service.
Upon his discharge from the army, Versen taught five and a half years in the undergraduate social work program at Mississippi University for Women. In 1977 Versen joined James Madison University, where he earned a Life-time Achievement award for excellence in teaching 25 years of social welfare courses, the Outstanding Faculty Award by the College of Health and Human Services, was awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award by Virginia Social Work Education Consortium and was awarded Professor Emeritus status upon retirement from JMU in 2002.
Versen enjoys photography and displays his own work in framed showcases throughout WMRA’s broadcast facility. Above all, Versen loves hosting Blues Valley every Sat. night from 8pm-1am. In 2008 wmra began streaming on-line, and now Versen can count Blues Valley listeners in California, Wisconsin, Colorado, Texas, Mississippi, Canada, and Europe. Versen is married and has three children and four grandchildren who call him “Papa Blues.” In Jan., 1985, Versen began a 30-year love affair with Blues Valley, and we celebrate that journey on Jan. 25th at Clementine Café.
Stacy Mitchhart joins Greg Versen at Clementine Café for this tribute event. Michhart’s first 1993 hit album Blues Transfusion marked the beginning of more than a dozen album releases from the Nashville Bluesman, which have earned him awards such as the “Blues Entertainer of the Year” by The Music City Blues Society and “2001 Blues Album of the Year” by the New York Blues and Jazz Society.
The wmra Radio Network is the National Public Radio affiliate for Charlottesville and the Shenandoah Valley, with over 50,000 listeners. It can be heard in the Shenandoah Valley at 90.7, Charlottesville at 103.5, Lexington at 89.9 and Winchester at 94.5.
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