Norway’s Gøran Stensrud is proof of just how much one dedicated individual can affect the blues culture of a nation. It started in 1996, when he and a couple of friends created the Hunndalen Blues Club. A year later he organized the Elverum Blues Club. Stensrud also played a key role in forming the Norwegian Blues Union in 1997. Using that platform, he helped found the Union Blues Cup, awarded to the winner of a youth band competition at the Notodden Blues Festival. As the organizer of that competition, Stensrud traveled with the winner to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. In 2004, he was approached to lead the Skedsmo Blues Club, a small club that organized about eight concerts in the area each year. Since that time, membership has tripled to some 600 people. After a fellow Board member passed away from cancer, Stensrud started a foundation in his name, which over the years has given more than $15,000 to young blues bands to help them improve. And when the 2012 Icelandic volcano eruption stranded Charlie Musselwhite and thousands of others flying out of Oslo, Stensrud arranged for Musselwhite and his band to perform a concert in the airport and then to have it broadcast across the country.
Gøran Stensrud passed away in February 2021.