Roger Naber

Ok, so it took me awhile to find my groove. After bouncing around a bit as a young adult, I began to promote live blues music at the end of the 1970's. American music had been overshadowed by Hollywood and it's disco (Saturday Night Fever) & country music (Urban Cowboy) films which immediately became our television network's easy access to ratings.

I co-founded the Kansas City Blues Society in 1980, the KC Blues Festival-1981, the KC Blues & Jazz Festival-1990, and owned the Grand Emporium live music nightclub from 1985-2004. Much of my music promotions and contributions to the Kansas City music scene can now be viewed at UMKC's Mars Sound Archives, which is run by archivist and friend Chuck Haddix of KCUR's Fish Fry Program.

Today, I am working with 2 of the most successful music lifestyle cruise companies in the world. I am the Managing Partner of the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, which is based here in Kansas City. One of my partners is David Jones, a 1971 Southwest High alumni. We are the world's only fully chartered blues music cruise sailing on major cruise ships to either the Caribbean/Atlantic or on the Pacific oceans. We currently charter Holland America's best 5-star ships in January and October. We feature 20 of the world's premier blues based bands for 7 days and nights that attracts music fans form 16 foreign countries and all across America's 50 states.

I'm also a partner in the Cloud Nine Adventures company, which operates the Jam Cruise, another successful music charter. It's model is based more around New Orleans funk/jazz music, but operates very similarly to the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise model for 5 days and nights in early January.

I've had the honor to know and work with many of the world's greatest musicians through my 30 years in the business. Though the number of years since we were in high school now is getting serious at 40, the word "retirement" is not in my vocabulary. I'm still having a lot of fun in this music business.

Many of you will not know me as I was not very involved in school activities. I threw the KC Star off of paper trucks early in the morning and after school, so I slept much of the time in the classrooms. I ran around with the greasers and wasn't a favorite of very many of the teachers.

There were 2 teachers who stood out in my mind as targets for classroom chaos. One was a little older man, Mr Chambers, who taught Civics. He had some ridiculous idea that the numbers 7 or 8 meant the f-word. So one day I thought I would test him. The tardy bell rang, I stood up and yelled across the room, Hey John, I'll come over to your house tonight at 7 or 8! He sent me down to Mr Greenstreet's office and wanted me removed from class for a week. I returned to class the next day.

The other was Mr Morton, another Civics and History teacher. He put all the cute girls on the front row and would call out roll to make fun of our names. If we can locate Don Fox, he had the funniest classroom teacher interaction I ever saw in my 5 years in that school.

I think Mr Greenstreet, who was considered to be a very rough VP. He was probably the most misunderstood guy in the building. Tough on the outside (his dad owned Todeman Cab), but a real listener and stood up for the student if he knew the student had merit.

Everyone if I will be attending. I'm presently unsure of my late summer schedule.