Thursday night, August 1, 2013, the Southeast Ballroom of the Memphis Hilton was the scene for the Jus Blues Music Awards, an annual event sponsored by the Atlanta-based Jus Blues Music Foundation. Although Memphis has a number of blues-related events during the year,this is the only one that is uniquely geared to the blues-related subgenre known as “southern soul”. As might be expected, this year’s awards brought out a number of blues and soul stars, including Theodis Ealey, Latimore, Millie Jackson, Preston Shannon, Drink Small, Karen Wolfe, Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle any many others, as well as representatives of the Blues Foundation. Between awards, Drink Small performed “Rooster Blues”, and after Latimore was presented a lifetime achievement award, he performed his biggest hit “Let’s Straighten It Out” with the band on stage, and was unexpectedly joined by Millie Jackson who came up from the auidence to sing the second verse. It was truly the high point of the evening.