Yvonne Williams is blind. She also lives off Washington Street, in a part of town that not even a lot of sighted people want to be out in at night. Yet she left her house every Tuesday for two months and took a cab to 401 Howard Avenue. for the simple pleasures of singing the blues at John Carey’s BBQ Blues Summit, a tradition that may, sadly, be dead before it gets a chance to fully live. “She’s an incredible blues singer, one of the best blues singers I’ve heard in this town,” says Carey, but she’s got nowhere to sing now.

This past October, the local favorite Carey began augmenting his weekly blues gig at the funky barbecue palace known as The Ugly Dog Saloon (401 Howard) with a get-together of blues musicians he dubbed the John Carey BBQ Blues Summit. Every Tuesday night, most of the local blues artists might be found there, either in the stage or in the audience, digging into the barbecue and then getting really greasy with some fatback licks.

An instantly popular idea, but it’s gone now, at least until John finds a new place to hold it. He’s used to doing that, however. “Well, I’ve kinda done ’em in the past,” Carey tells OffBeat. “I used to do one in Tampa, Florida, at the Peanut Gallery. I was filling in for a harp player named Rock Bottom who went to Europe, and I just started it there.” The Summit also found other colorfully named homes, such as The Grog in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and when Carey finally arrived here in 1995, he immediately began angling to start it back up. First stop was Mid-City’s Wit’s Inn club, where he’d scored a semi-steady one-Friday-a-month gig, but “the guy who ran it didn’t want to do it through the summer, ’cause it gets really slow there,” according to Carey.

Enter the Ugly Dog. If ambience alone would have been enough, the Dog would have hosted it forever: a barbecue joint with cement floors and a whole lot of attitude. And for a while, it seemed symbiotic. One of the owners, Steve Rouquette, began to book Carey, and the first summit occurred soon after, on October 5. “It went really well,” says the summit leader. “I had Andy J. Forest, Leigh Harris, Kim Carson, Mike Sklar, Nelson Lunding…” Well, the list goes on. In fact, Carey loves the Summit so much, he kept notes. Just in that first month, the gathering was host to name acts like Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone, and J. Monque’ D, not to mention some of the baddest-ass hired guns in the city: Tom Worrell (piano, Mem Shannon), Marc Stone (guitar, Eddie Bo), Scott Thomas (guitar, Marva Wright) and Renard Poche (guitar, Dr. John).

With that lineup, the place must have been packed, yes? “Well, it was pretty full, but it was a huge room, so it’s never been packed,” Carey says. “Besides, we had three times as many patrons as musicians. It wasn’t the numbers they were concerned about.” That room would prove to be the Summit’s undoing, as well. “Steve used to book the music at the Fourth Quarter. He’s very much into the music, and his partner is very much into the restaurant…. He was very hesitant to do music in there. They said that they might do music later, but they don’t want to right now, because of the sound quality.” Or lack thereof, according to everyone concerned. As John points out, “It had a cement ceiling and a cement floor, so you have this cavernous sound. If you stood at the front it sounded great, but if you stood at the back the music bounced all around.”

So Carey searches for a new venue. Tuesday’s the magic day, since most musicians have regular gigs on weekends, and many of Carey’s core band members usually have Monday dates to play. The Summit usually begins with Carey’s band playing around 10 or 11 p.m., at which point the visiting musicians hop on stage and fill spots. “Most of the time the core band doesn’t even have to play the rest of the night,” Carey notes. “Basically the theme is blues, but everyone has total freedom to do what they want. Usually they’ll do songs that they’ve been working on, or some covers; one night, for example, we did a lot of Elmore James.” The Summit attracts a variety of folks, according to John: “People who look for drummers for hire, or maybe the kid who’s just been sitting at home on his bed practicing, or people who want feedback on some new songs, or guys who have been off the road a while and are itchin’ to play.” And people like Yvonne Williams. Anyone wishing to host the Summit can make it happen by calling John Carey at (504) 269-2521.

In other, less happy news, blues legend Hubert Sumlin’s wife, Bea Sumlin, passed away on October 27 after generally ill health for a number of years. True blues royalty, she was the niece of Sunnyland Slim and was happily married to Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Sumlin for many years. “Mama,” as she was called, was laid to rest October 30. Happily, we can celebrate a life, as well: Shelby, Mississippi’s own Henry Townsend recently celebrated his 90th birthday with a media juggernaut including an autobiography (“Henry Townsend–A Blues Life”), an all-star concert featuring such luminaries as Johnnie Johnson and Arthur Williams and TWO movie premieres (“That’s The Way I Do It–The Life and Times of Henry Townsend” and “Hellhounds On My Trail–The Afterlife of Robert Johnson”). Not to mention the key to the city of St. Louis, Missouri! Townsend’s career highlights include working as a duo in St. Louis nightclubs with Robert Johnson and both co-writing and performing on Big Joe Williams’ original version of “Baby Please Don’t Go” and Aaron Pinetop Sparks’ original version of “Everyday I Have The Blues.”

There’s plenty of living, breathing blues to celebrate this month as well; two major players in the genre are celebrating career milestones. Walter “Wolfman” Washington and the Roadmasters, whose Blue Moon Rising is winning critical raves, are set to impress the Maple Leaf with shows on 12/4 and 12/18. Tab Benoit’s career-defining new CD, These Blues Are All Mine, will get a live workout at the legendary Rock ‘n’ Bowl (Mid City Lanes) on the 11th. Vic’s Kangaroo Café gets bluer by the hour: this month they offer up Ryan Reardon & The Levee Breakers on the 11th and the Real Deal himself, B.B. Major, on the 4th. Christmas week the House Of Blues delivers the goods with Gregg Allman and Friends on the 26th and 27th, and Dr. John on the 28th and 29th. And if you’re wondering what to do with the last few drunken hours of the M word, the HOB has the incomparable swing-blues of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown to pacify you before all the lights go out.