10:15am | Local businessman and political activist Bill Grisolia will be a host, performer and nominee at the 20th annual Los Angeles Music Awards on Thursday.

Grisolia, who has served as a public relations representative in various capacities for several Long Beach organizations, will serve as Master of Ceremonies of the Red Carpet and Red Carpet Stage at the event at Paramount Studios inside the Paramount Theater.

Grisolia’s band, New Blues Revolution, is also nominated song for Best Single of the Year in the Blues Americana category. New Blues Revolution is set to perform an acoustic set during the event.

This year’s L.A. Music Awards coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the 75th birthday of the historic Paramount piano, the instrument that composed the original score to the Wizard of Oz in 1935. The piano will be played by Italian pianist Adriano Aponte and White House pianist David Osborne.

Celebrity honorees include actress Sally Kirkland, Night Ranger’s Jack Blades, music producer Eddie Kramer, Senator Max Cleland, and posthumous awards for Jaco Pastorious and Ronnie James Dio.

Former President Jimmy Carter will be presented with the Lifetime Humanitarian Award.
 The red carpet event begins at 6:30 p.m., with show time at 8 p.m. Call (310) 798-0822 or visit lamusicawards.info for more information on the event.

Grisolia owned the Sunfish Grill restaurant in Shoreline Village, and he has done communications work for several local firms, including the Long Beach-based Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Long Beach Memorial Hospital. He was on the board the Long Beach YMCA, the Long Beach Latino Center, the Long Beach Federal Credit Union and he currently serves on the Board of Long Beach Cares. He’s a graduate of the first Long Beach Chamber of Commerce Candidate Academy.

Grisolia was an elected representative of Long Beach for the last two Democratic National Conventions, and he has made bids for Congress and Long Beach City Council. 

“This event at Paramount studios is as exciting as the Grammy awards at Staples Center,” Grisolia said. “And that’s coming after 17 years as a voting members of the Grammy’s.”

He says he will be at the event representing “the Long Beach-based band the New Blues Revolution,” and that he will be inviting people at the event “to come down and enjoy Long Beach arts and culture.”

New Blues Revolution performs at nightclubs, concerts and festivals in the U.S. and Europe and has had several television appearances and broadcast performances. The band has opened for diverse musical acts, including Tab Benoit, Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis, Burt Bacharach, Blood Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, Eddie Money and Michael Shenker.

“New blues is a name given to blues music by artists such as The White Stripes, John Mayer Trio, Seasick Steve, Stephen Dale Petit and The Black Keys, who are bringing the blues to wider popularity in the New Millennium, and the name new blues revolution refers to the time in the late 2000’s when the contemporised form of the deep blues caught the mainstream imagination, and the blues thereby gained a wider audience,” according to Wikipedia.

For more information on the band go to newbluesrevolution.com.