ABOUT BCB

Bayou City Blues was founded in the summer of 1991 by a group of friends that wanted to bring the drum corps activity to the Houston area. First known has “Sound Star,” the Corps was soon re-branded to “Bayou City Blues.” BCB rapidly grew from 5 horns to 25 and performed locally at area festivals, parades and the Houston ExSightment of Sound DCI show throughout the 1990’s as we continued to mature and grow. We were also frequent participants and perennial favorites in many of the Independence Day parades in the Chicago, IL-Racine, WI areas. In 2000, the Corps traveled to the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) Championships in Syracuse, NY with 27 horns, a full battery and color guard, taking 3rd place in the Class A Division.

In July 2001, as BCB prepared to return to DCA, we approached the Texas Color Guard Circuit about their rules in respect to using brass musicians in a winter guard show. Since there were already percussion ensembles doing this, using horns seemed like the next logical step. There were no specific rules forbidding it, so we had a starting place to create a small in-door ensemble to promote the Corps during the winter. Little did we know at the time that this innovative concept was an early precursor of the WGI/TCGC Indoor Winds classification that began in 2015.

Over the next few months, we recruited enough brass and percussion musicians to form the ensemble. The next problem was finding guard members. BCB Member, Dena Anderson, introduced us to Cathy Marmolejo, guard instructor for the MCM Winter Guard at the University of Houston. She was interested in combining forces. Having a union between MCM and BCB worked out really well because it provided a place to rehearse: the UH campus.

We weren't quite sure what to call this thing, though. It wasn't really a Winter Guard, but it wasn't a traditional Drum & Bugle Corps either. So, Mary Knight coined the phrase "Winter Corps" for us and it stuck.

Our next step was to find a name. The initial intention was to call the unit Bayou City Blues Winter Corps. However, due to some internal political issues the new group was forced to make a break from BCB and form a separate unit. After MUCH discussion the members voted to name the new Corps "Gulf Coast Sound." Our primary mission that first year was to recruit new members for BCB and we did everything possible to accomplish that goal. It wasn't until much later (and acting on a directive from our parent board of directors, Gulf Coast Drum Corps Associates (GCDCA)), that GCS became a nationally competitive "Field Corps.” BCB was declared “inactive” a short time later.

It's important to understand that BCB and GCS were comprised of the same core group of friends. In all respects, we simply renamed the Corps for a decade.

The 2002 and 2003 TCGC seasons were very successful. The members had a great time and the performances were well received by the audiences and judges. The 'Winter Corps” worked out so well that it acted as a spring-board for the Corps to transition back into a full-fledged Drum & Bugle Corps for the 2004 through 2008 seasons in the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) circuit. GCS was so successful that we hosted All-Age Drum Corps shows in Texas for the first time and were instrumental in spawning a new circuit of all-age Corps in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida called DCA South, which allowed us to compete with regional corps rather than make 12-20 hour trips to the North East.

2009 saw a downturn in the economy and a loss of membership. So, we joined forces with the North Harris Campus of Lone Star College (Fine Arts Department) and became an elective, “Continuing Education” class in the college’s curriculum. This gave us professional instructors, a fantastic rehearsal facility and a new base to draw membership from. This arrangement lasted until 2012 when internal issues within the management team led to the corps declaring itself “Inactive”

In 2014 a group of former members began to discuss the possibility of bringing the Corps back. The first meeting of the Board of Directors was officially held in the summer of 2015 and preparations then began to bring Bayou City Blues back to life.

Under the leadership of DCA veteran performer and instructor, Brian Wilt, the Corps quickly reformed, grew and thrived while competing in DCI Soundsport and TCGC Indoor Winds between 2016 and 2020.  The pandemic shutdowns in 2020 also shut us down and it wasn’t until 2022 that regular rehearsals resumed. This meant having to miss the much anticipated 30th anniversary in 2021. Through some struggles in years of regrowth, including the loss of Mr. Wilt to cancer, the Corps finally returned to TCGC in 2025 and is making plans for a grand 35th anniversary in 2026!

Into the future, BCB intends to be a leader in the growth of the drum corps activity in southeast Texas, continue with innovation in the marching arts, keep the activity accessible to all (regardless of financial demographic) and bring the drum & bugle corps genre into even wider acceptance to all who love music.