If you’ve never heard of Robin Rogers, it’s been your loss. Robin won the 2009 Blues Blast Award for Best Female Artist. She has an amazingly powerful voice, and was poised to become one of the great voices in Contemporary Blues. Recently, though, Robin was hospitalized due to some complications from her Hepatitis C, which she believes she contracted decades ago in her wilder youth. It was hoped that she could undergo TIPS surgery to keep blood from further entering her belly and breaking down into unsafe elements. The surgery would also have kept the swelling from threatening the integrity of the banding operation previously done to relieve esophageal verices (enlarged veins).
Then things took a turn for the worse. A CT scan prior to the procedure revealed a cancerous tumor on her liver. The tumor is untreatable given the condition of her liver. Robin is also not a candidate for a transplant as the drugs required to help the body accept a transplant would be ineffective and dangerous. She’s now at home and Hospice has been called in.
Right now the most pressing need that Robin and Tony (her husband, who is an old friend of mine) have are day-to-day expenses. Robin did not have health insurance, and as Tony has said, “they don’t give unemployment to musicians”. So if you have the means and you have a heart at all, please help in any way that you can. Anyone choosing to do so can donate directly to the Robin Rogers Medical Trust Fund by making a deposit at any Bank of America, using the account number 0006-5617-0126. Checks may also be mailed to Rachel Pickard, Attorney at Law Trustee, at P.O. Box 547, Gastonia, NC 28053.
Another way you can support Robin and Tony during this difficult time is to purchase their new CD, Back In The Fire, directly from their web site – robinrogers.com . They receive a larger portion of sales from the web site than they do through stores like Amazon.com, iTunes and CD Baby.
Please do as much or as little as you can. Every little bit helps.
