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From Back-Porch Jams to BAHS Jamborees
From Back-Porch Jams to BAHS Jamborees
Before the stages, the tours, and the food-drive events, there was a back porch in Baja.
Before the stages, the tours, and the food-drive events, there was a back porch in Baja.
Our Jam History
Our Jam History
In 2013 at Campo Ocotillo, Sweet and Sixx began learning music the simplest way possible — sitting outside in the evening heat, working through basic blues progressions with friends. Those early backyard sessions weren’t performances or events yet. They were just people gathering, learning, and playing together. In many ways, those nights became the spiritual beginning of what would later grow into the BAHS Jamborees.
The following year, that spirit moved into the community.
On May 23, 2014, at El Dorado Ranch in San Felipe, Sweet and Sixx hosted their first public food-drive performance to help a local food pantry restock after losing its building. The response was overwhelming — a full room of curious neighbors, supportive musicians, and more than 400 pounds of food collected. At the time, it wasn’t called a Jamboree yet. It was simply music with a purpose.
Over the next year, they hosted roughly ten food-drive music events, learning how to perform while building a community around music and giving. Those early shows were raw, humble, and collaborative. Musicians regularly joined in, and the line between performer and participant began to blur.
That’s when the idea of the BAHS Jamboree truly took shape.
The Jamboree format grew naturally out of those early gatherings — not a traditional concert, but a community jam anchored by simple songs, shared rhythms, and open participation. Blues became the musical foundation because of its accessibility and its influence across so many styles of music. From there, the sound expanded to include folk, Latin rhythms, reggae grooves, roots music, and beyond — anything “jammable.”
The BAHS Jamborees quickly became the heart of Blues Against Hunger Society’s food-drive mission.
Over the years, Jamborees have been held across the U.S. West Coast and throughout Baja California, often as part of BAHS tours. One early tour traveled through 10 U.S. states over six months, hosting food-drive events in community spaces, restaurants, breweries, and small venues. Later tours focused heavily on Baja California, where Jamborees were hosted in towns up and down the peninsula.
Along the way, hundreds of musicians have participated — from first-time players to touring professionals and even Grammy-winning artists. The Jamboree format made room for everyone.
BAHS events have taken many forms over the years —
food-drive concerts, festivals, acoustic gatherings, and even an 8-hour music telethon — but the Jamboree remained the most consistent and recognizable expression of the organization’s mission.
Music shared. Community fed.
After more than a decade, BAHS Jamborees have helped collect thousands of pounds of food for local food banks and community pantries, while creating musical connections that span cities, countries, and generations of players.
Just as importantly, the Jamborees helped shape Sweet Sixx’s own musical voice — rooted in blues simplicity, colored by reggae rhythm, Latin influence, folk storytelling, and acoustic collaboration.
Today, that evolution continues.
The BAHS Jamboree is growing into its next chapter:
LOVE JAM — Roots to Riddim
The name is shorter, but the spirit is the same —
community music, open participation, and neighbors helping neighbors.
Because it still starts the same way it did back in 2013…
With people showing up, picking up instruments, and playing together.
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