Red Paden (left) with Art Tipoldi, KBA Chairman Photo Courtesy of Orlando Paden

Red Paden, owner of Red’s Blues Club in Clarksdale, is honored with the Blues Foundation’s prestigious ‘Keeping the Blues Alive’ (KBA) award in Memphis Saturday, February 4, 2012 during the annual International Blues Challenge weekend. Presenting the award to Paden is Art Tipoldi, KBA chairman.

Paden is the father of Coahoma Community College’s student employment director Orlando Paden, an alumnus of CCC and former SGA president.

For many years Red Paden has featured authentic blues musicians and welcomed hundreds of international visitors to his club that Esquire magazine described as ‘the best place in America to hear blues.’ It also was the personal hometown stage for the late Blues Music Award winner Big Jack Johnson and is the site for a Walk of Fame bronze plaque honoring Johnson unveiled during the 2011 Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival.