After decades of following blues musicians around the world and helping found a music festival of his own, one could say psychology professor Greg Gormanous is a part of blues history.
The Little Walter Music Festival, an event in honor of the rock and roll hall of famer and blues musician Marion Walter Jacob, will hold its fourth annual two-day event on May 27 and May 28 at the Alexandria Amphitheatre in Alexandria, Louisiana.
The festival was founded in 2013 and started as a single day event honoring Jacobs, known popularly as Little Walter. Little Walter was born in Marksville, Louisiana, and is known for his innovative approach to the blues harmonica and as a sideman and bandleader in the blues genre.
Gormanous helped found and organize the festival.
“We kept saying we needed a Little Walter festival in Alexandria. Nobody understood who Little Walter was,” Gormanous said.
The Little Walter Foundation, headed by Little Walter’s daughter, Marion Diaz-Reacco, supported the creation of the fest.
The partial founder first discovered the blues when he became interested in Otis Redding as a teenager. At first, all of the music in the genre sounded alike to Gormanous, but as he traveled and saw performers, he began to see how
different each song could be.
Gormanous did post-doctoral research on blues and was a volunteer musician with B.B. King throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. Gormanous said he wasn’t on the payroll, but served as a confidant to band members.
He observed B.B. King as one of the most kind-hearted people he’d ever encountered. Gormanous said he knew the blues legend on a humanistic level.
“To bring up B.B. King on a couple of occasions was like a drug,” he said.
The first year the festival was held, 300 attendees were expected. Turnout for the event ended up being about 1,000 people.
“So much of American music, especially black music, blues music has never really gotten the respect here that it got in Australia or South Africa,” Gormanous said.
The lineup for this year’s festival features Shemekia Copeland, Kenny Neal, and The Little Walter Tribute Band, among others. A harmonica workshop will also be held at the Tipitina’s Music Office Co-Op on May 28.
As a psychology professor at the University, Gormanous noted the similarities between music and psychology.
“Psychology is about life, relationships, emotions and mood,” he said. “Film and music are about life, relationships, emotions and mood. It’s a natural fit.”
Admission to the festival is free and open to the public. The festival is family-friendly, and will have food and drink vendors.
“I think it’ll grow but we want to be able to manage it,” Gormanous said. “It’s just a way to appreciate life.”

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Nicholas Martino

Psychology Professor, Greg Gormanous, helped organize the Little Walter Music Festival in Alexandria, on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, at LSU.