Chuck Blamphin has run the Fais Do-Do stage at Jazz Fest for 50 years. He’s not going anywhere.

Here’s the scene. The Mexican band Son de Madera is setting up for their 12:30 p.m. show on the Jazz Fest’s Fais Do-Do stage on Sunday. Suddenly, a spasm of panic spreads when the bass player snaps a string and there isn’t a replacement at hand. At 11 minutes before showtime, somebody’s got to go grab a spare.

So, who immediately takes off down the plywood ramp, quick steps over to the back of the Congo Square tent, takes the handoff of the replacement base string, swiftly returns and gets the show back on track? Was it some nimble 20-year-old stagehand?

No, it was Chuck Blamphin, 78, stage manager of the Fais Do-Do stage for the past half century. Yet, he wasn’t out of breath, he hadn’t broken a sweat, and heaven knows he hadn’t raised his voice.

But Blamphin wasn’t out of the woods yet. Even after the bass player was back in business, the sound check was taking longer than expected. The engineer at the sound board had to set the levels on the instruments of five musicians, all of whom might have been a little nervous.

As Blamphin explained, it comes with the territory. “The Fais Do-Do is one gig people really look forward to,” he said. The stakes are high, and everybody wants the outdoor venue at the edge of a racetrack to sound like Carnegie Hall.

In the end, the show starts six minutes late. In the real world, that’s not a long time, but on the Fais Do-Do stage, it’s too long. But, Blamphin says, “that’s what you call ‘s*** happens.’”

So, how do you get that job?

Blamphin’s mom was from Honduras, his dad — a doctor — was from Guatemala, and he grew up on Palmer Avenue in Uptown New Orleans. His musical taste, he said, was established by the old juke box his family owned, which was filled of 78s by everybody from mambo king Perez Prado to pioneer rocker Bill Haley, to foxtrot tunes.

He might be the manager of the Fest’s main Cajun/zydeco/Americana/international music venue, but his personal jam is traditional jazz.

Blamphin went to high school at the bygone New Orleans Academy, then graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a degree in marketing. He married his high school sweetheart, Carolyn, and had two kids. For most of his career, Blamphin worked for two manufacturers’ rep companies that sold engineered steel and water treatment equipment. Which, he said, was “absolutely not” as exciting as managing a Jazz Fest stage.

The greatest gig

Blamphin said he “lucked into the greatest gig of my life,” because of a casual chauvinistic remark. It was 1973, and his sister Louise Price had gotten a side job distributing flyers for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which was in its fourth year. When she got back to the Jazz Fest headquarters, one of the Fest founders, Allison Miner, offered her the responsibility of managing one of the festival’s music stages.

Blamphin said his sister — who was a medical technician at the time — was a bit flabbergasted. Before she could formulate an answer, a male musician, who happened to be in the room, said something like, “Oh, don’t put a woman in charge, she’ll mess it up,” Blamphin said.

Truth is, Price may not have taken the job if it hadn’t been for the remark, which she took as a challenge. Blamphin’s sister invited him to visit the fest that year and he immediately fell in love with the event. The very first show he saw, he said, was a Swedish jazz band.

By 1974, Blamphin was assisting his sister and has continued ever since. “So,” he said with a chuckle, “I haven’t been to Jazz Fest since 1973.”

In the beginning

When he started, he said, things were different. The stages — which didn’t have names yet, just numbers — were small and stood only 3 feet off the ground. He recalls Mardi Gras Indians dancing atop a flatbed truck. The crowd was kept back by “little yellow ropes.” It wasn’t until 1989 that his venue was named the Fais Do-Do stage.

After all these years, Blamphin has tales to tell. There was the time the president of Panama appeared at the back of the stage with heavily armed bodyguards. Last year, he said, Mick Jagger showed up at the stage entrance, but the security guard didn’t recognize him and turned him away.

Security guards have even stopped festival producer Quint Davis. There was the Cuban band manager who handed out contraband cigars to everybody, the teenage girl who poignantly sprinkled her grandfather’s ashes at his favorite spot near the stage, the time the drum kit disappeared, and on and on.

Blamphin’s got a ton of anecdotes. But actually, he said, the drama has been minimal over the years.

Among the Cajun country musicians, “Everybody knows everybody, it’s like family,” Blamphin said. The crowd is always great, too. “We’ve never had any trouble in the audience,” he said. “Everybody’s so mellow, just having a good time,” he said, though they don’t dance as much as they used to.

Calm down, cool out

Blamphin is the beneficiary of the convivial vibe of the Fais Do-Do stage. He may also be a big part of the reason for it. “He’s not a hot head,” said Robin Rosemont, who’s worked with Blamphin for 12 years, “he stays calm and he has an incredible sense of humor.”

“He’s basically making sure we start and stop on time,” she said. "We handle everything by the seat of our pants.” When a crisis arises, “he’ll say, ‘Calm down, cool out.’”

Blamphin is retired from his regular job now, which gives him time to enjoy his four grandkids. His wife passed away some years back. He said he’ll probably manage the Fais Do-Do stage as long as he can. On the other hand, he said, someday he’d just like to attend the fest like everybody else.

He still marvels that the Jazz Fest sprouts up each year, come what may. “If you can imagine that this is a horse racetrack,” he said. “To come out here and build this is amazing.”

With tongue in cheek as always, Blamphin called the fest a “merry meadowland of music,” and in the middle of it, “here’s a 78-year-old running around with his head cut off.”

Maybe that’s his internal perspective, but on Sunday, just a few minutes after Son de Madera successfully got started, Blamphin stood casually in a narrow gap at the front of the tent, staring out over the audience, as seemingly unhurried as the passing clouds.