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Sam Veal Is “Bringing The Blues”
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Sam Veal Is “Bringing The Blues”

- edited by: Mike Kaufmann

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It seems redundant to begin every story on the First Coast music scene with a description of how incredible the vibe is in Jacksonville, but we truly have something unique in how the fans, artists, promoters, venue owners and others all seem to click, almost like a big, loving, happy family. With venues like Daily’s Place, St Augustine Amphitheatre, Ponte Vedra Music Hall, Florida Theatre and the Jacksonville Beach Seawalk Pavilion there is no shortage of great music coming to town on a consistent basis. Which provides ample opportunity for fans to get together and enjoy something that enriches their lives to the fullest.

The First Coast’s most popular Blues band, Smokestack, led by Mayport native Jack Corcoran from 2018.

If it’s true that music is chicken soup for the soul then music lovers all over the First Coast can be mighty thankful that they live in an area that boasts one of the truly unique music communities in the country. Besides having a multitude of excellent venues that bring in the most popular national and international acts, the local bands that perform at area bars and restaurants often consist of performers who have played the biggest stages in the world which gives music lovers incredible opportunities to digest the best chicken soup on virtually any given night of the year. And then there’s the annual festivals that put together a mix of national superstars with a variety of local acts that give music fans a smorgasbord of opportunities to hear a recipe that will soothe their souls for the entire year.

One of the most popular music festivals on the national circuit is Springing The Blues, held annually in Jacksonville Beach, and offers not only Blues fans, but music lovers in general, a chance to experience something that rivals any of the biggest music events in the world. The three day event, held at right next to the Atlantic Ocean, at The Seawalk Pavilion, brings some of the biggest names in Blues to the First Coast, features a food court of cuisine from all over the world, allows vendors to present merchandise to the public that buyers will cherish forever, offers activities that are family and kid friendly, showcases many of the hottest upcoming regional and local bands, and get this, it’s free to anyone who wants to attend!

A weekend of family friendly fun, Springing The Blues is free to the public.

The brainchild of beach local Sam Veal, Springing The Blues kicks off its thirtieth year this weekend on Friday April 1, 2022 with a line up on the first day that is as good as many event’s entire headlining list. That isn’t without an asterisk or two though. Veal told FirstCoast.Life, “This is the 30th Springing, but we were all set to go in 2020 before Covid put a screeching halt to the show. That was asterisk number one. In 2021 we did all our planning hoping to pull it off, but again the pandemic prevented the festival from happening. That was asterisk number two, but we have a green light this year and we are all excited to see Springing The Blues back on the schedule to give festival goers a great weekend of impressive music.”

Sam Veal with daughters Lilly and Rachel.

Sam Veal is not the typical music promoter though. Growing up in Ponte Vedra in the 60’s and 70’s Sam naturally took an interest in surfing and on most weekends was hanging out at the Ponte Vedra Club with all the local kids surfing as much as the conditions allowed, swimming at the pool, eating lunch from the concession window, and along with his buddies, watching the pretty girls sunbathing on the beach. “Growing up at the beach was kind of an idyllic setting for us kids in Ponte Vedra,” Sam said. “It was about as close to a Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer setting as you could get. We would go diving in the lagoons around the golf course and retrieve golf balls that we sold back to other golfers for a little pocket money. We went bridge jumping when there was not any surf, but we would surf anything from a foot high to about six or seven feet and that was our biggest passion at the time. I remember we really started surfing on rafts before surfboards were readily available, but I mean we built forts around the woods from excess lumber while the housing boom was going on, so we had a pretty great existence for a bunch of kids with time on our hands! It was sort of like an Endless Summer kind of vibe for those of us at the time.”

Veal with Tim Ellis and John Miller at The Beaches Historical Society’s “Little Chapel.”

Veal’s love of music crept into his life primarily from listening to music on the radio that his parents loved to play. But the Veal family had a live-in nanny/ housekeeper/ cook who loved to sing and listening to her sing gave Sam a feeling like he had never felt, and music just seemed to fill a void unlike anything else. In those days, the Ponte Vedra Club offered a Saturday night dance event and the local kids really enjoyed hanging out and listening to music and Veal recalled that he just loved moving his body to the beat. “Something about the music made me want to dance and I had a sort of natural rhythm, maybe from surfing, but something about the music coursing through me just made my body move. And of course, at that age dancing with the different girls was a great feeling. It was probably as close to sex as we got so the whole vibe was exciting and as I got older, I just liked moving to the music so I did.”

Caitlin McWilliams of the Cat McWilliams Band

A true romantic at heart, Veal noticed a cheerleader from Wolfson High School at a Fletcher football game one night and he knew right off that he wanted to know more about her. He struck up a conversation with her that led to more interaction and ultimately he spent considerable time with her and her family. “In addition to being a cheerleader she was a ballet dancer. Her parents took us to see Sleeping Beauty by the Washington National Ballet at the Jacksonville Civic Center and that was really the first time I had ever seen a performance like that. The two lead dancers were Rudolph Nuryev and Margot Fontaine and watching the power and storytelling of that performance, something came over me, and whether I wanted to impress Beth or it was the stage lights or the drama or whatever I just got transfixed and the feeling just sort of stayed with me.” Ultimately Sam went off to college at the University of South Carolina but before graduating found himself transferring to the University of Florida. “One day I was wondering through the mall, more staring at pretty girls than shopping but I happened upon a performance by the Gainesville Ballet and watching that made me realize that I really wanted to give ballet a try.”

Springing The Blues offers a “Kids Zone” with bouncy houses, rock climbing and more!

Veal took some classes and it turned out he was a natural but before taking any more real action to follow the dream, in a twist of life he found himself hitchhiking to New York with a friend. Upon arriving in the Big Apple Veal happened upon the American Ballet Theatre School and walked in and danced for Director Leon Danielian and was quickly offered a scholarship. “I got a job selling tacos at a taco stand in Central Park and often served John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” Sam said. “But ultimately I got a contract with the American Ballet Theatre and my first professional performance was in Petruska as a lowly Russian dancer, but on stage with Mikhail Baryshnikov was absolutely electrifying.” A career in ballet seemed imminent for Veal but after advancing to the Iranian National Ballet Company in Tehran in 1979, Sam found himself right in the middle of a crisis when the Ayatollah Khomeini decided to overthrow the Shah and Sam quickly found himself slipping quietly out of Tehran on a false Canadian to Paris and a new position with the Théâtre du Silence. After touring the world with the Théâtre du Silence, Veal returned to the Middle East and joined the Bat Dor Dance Company in Tel Aviv. Back on tour to the United States, eventually political issues forced Veal to make some hard decisions and ultimately he returned home to Jacksonville Beach and began a new career in business.

Truly a “Sea Side” venue, Seawalk Pavilion is one of the best music locations in the country.

“I had to think about what I wanted to remember about my life and instead of looking back and having only a collection of old and faded programs and whatnot, I made the giant leap from the artistic world into the capitalistic world, and I followed my brother into the insurance business,” he said. Returning home led Veal down a few wrong paths and instead of watching his life go down the drain Sam decided it was time to grow up the rest of the way and decided, as he stated, “to recover. And that is what I have been doing for the last twenty-seven years.”

Sam in his office in Jacksonville Beach.

While Veal became more immersed in his “capitalistic world” his artistic juices did not simply disappear. “I was marginally successful in business,” he said. “But I still had my artistic urges, and I started a non profit ballet school, Ballet By The Sea, in the space in Jax Beach where the old roller skating rink was. That lasted a few years, but my mind went back to my days in Gainesville and to a concert I went to of The Allman Brothers and there was a guy who opened for them named BB King who just blew me away. But it really went even further back than that to our live-in nanny, Marilou Hayes, whose singing was just so powerful that I never forgot her. I mean I could see the pain in her voice, but I could also see the strength and hope and optimism, and that is definitely where the soulful sound of the Blues seeped into my inner core.”

David Julia returns to Jacksonville Beach for Springing The Blues 2022.

With so much music ingrained in his soul, Veal recalled riding through Palm Valley with best friend Reid McCormick one day commiserating about the poor state of affairs the world was in. He remembers telling Reid that they needed to do something to make, if nowhere else, their home a better place. Confused, McCormick asked what he meant. Veal described his vision of a Blues festival and urged McCormick to run for Mayor. “You run for Mayor, and I will be your campaign manager. When you get elected, I’ll propose the festival and you can get the city behind it,” Veal told FirstCoast.Life.   Now, thirty-two years later that vision has resulted in, not Only Springing The Blues, but other festivals as well. With the success of Springing The Blues Veal saw the need for similar events and now produces four festivals a year in Jacksonville Beach. The Community First Seawalk Festival, The Great Atlantic Southern Rock Revival Music Festival and Beachella Arts & Music Fair round out Veal’s line up of annual festivals. And all are free to the public. “But it’s not just me,” Sam was adamant about pointing out. “The success of our festivals extends to some especially important people who put in a massive amount of demanding work. Without guys like Reid, Lloyd Hyatt, Terry Dixon, Mitch Harbison, and so many others, none of this would be happening.”

Sam with wife Tracey.

That is one of Sam Veal’s most admirable qualities too. He is humble beyond belief. His original vision was to create something to bring joy to other people and thirty-two years later his focus remains the same. For more information on this weekend’s Springing The Blues Festival visit www.springingtheblues.com. For information on his remaining festivals check out www.jaxbeachfestivals.com.

Theteam that makes it all happen. Lloyd Hyatt, Terry Dixon and Sam Veal. (not pictured: Mitch Harbison)

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