FREE
2018 BFG Sponsor
Music by Lisa Mann: Hard Times, Bad Decisions
Daughters of the Blues • Blues Migration • Shopping for Talent
BluesFestivalGuide.com
2
Blues Festival Guide 2018
PUBLISHED BY RBA Publishing Inc. dba BLUES FESTIVAL GUIDE P.O. Box 920, Arcata, CA 95518 - 707/630-3304 www.BluesFestivalGuide.com Facebook.com/bluesfestivalguide Twitter.com/bluesfestguide TO HAVE A COPY MAILED TO YOU Send $8.00 ($13.00 overseas) PUBLISHER Kaati: Kaati@BluesFestivalGuide.com EDITOR Irene Johnson: Irene@BluesFestivalGuide.com BLUES FESTIVAL E-GUIDE NEWSLETTER EDITOR Michele Lundeen SALES MANAGER/MARKETING DIRECTOR Cheryl O’Grady-Yearnshaw: cogblues@att.net EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS Albert Cummings, Claire Henderson, Stacy Jeffress, Michele Lundeen, Jim O’Neal, Regi Oliver, Lynn Orman Weiss, Jim Pugh, John Shipley, Bill Wharton, Don Wilcock, Rev. Billy C. Wirtz PHOTO & Art CONTRIBUTORS Aqua Design, Jeff Beeler, Courtesy BluEsoterica Archives, Christiaan Breur, Chicago Defender – ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Courtesy Shemekia Copeland, Dave Corry, Courtesy Delta Cultural Center, William R. Ferris - Courtesy Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, © Eric Gorder 2006: egorder@gmail. com, Amanda Gresham, John Hahn, Duane Heaton, Claire Henderson, Eric Ilasenko, Courtesy Bettye Kelly, Makena Lee Photography, Jennifer Mardus Photography, Courtesy Barbra Marks, Joseph Mayers, Courtesy Mississippi Blues Commission, Matt O’Brien, Jim O’Neal, Courtesy Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History - University of Arkansas, © Joseph A. Rosen, © Marilyn Stringer, Courtesy Teeny Tucker, Amy van Singel, Kirk West, Ruth Wharton, Robby Yamilov ADVERTISING SALES Cheryl O’Grady-Yearnshaw, Heather Penrod-Rudd, Tom Andrews ADVERTISING TRAFFIC COORDINATOR Heather Penrod-Rudd Administrative/Database Management Heather Penrod-Rudd DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Heather Penrod-Rudd DESIGN & PRODUCTION/WEBSITE Goran Petko CONSULTANTS Nancy Edwards, Michele Lundeen, Tom Yearnshaw The opinions of the contributors are not necessarily the views of RBA Publishing Inc. Front Cover On the cover is dynamic duo Laura Chavez and Nikki Hill tearing it up at the 2017 San Diego Blues Festival. Laura Chavez, the uber-talented, longtime collaborator of the late Candye Kane, is one of the top female rhythm and blues guitar virtuosos in America and was part of 2017 Ruf Records Caravan of Blues. Carolina fireball Nikki Hill is a Blues Music Awards “Contemporary Blues Female Artist” nominee and an inimitable, soulful, raw, roots-blues rocker. Between the two of them, they are a force to be reckoned with. FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPHER © Marilyn Stringer www.MJStringerPhoto.com
4
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Greetings Fellow Blues Fans! Here at the Blues Festival Guide (BFG), we are happy to report that blues festivals, as a whole, are healthy. We’ve got the pulse on blues festivals worldwide and the beat is strong. Yes, every year some festivals drop off the grid. Just last year, a few festivals wiped out due to inclement weather, including 112-degree heat and hurricanes. Festivals with cash flow or organizational problems take a break to recuperate then come back stronger than ever. Others lose their grant money and can’t survive without it. And some, like the Santa Cruz Music Festival hit the pause button on reality, simply because “The challenges and expenses of delivering a quality music festival have grown larger and more daunting over the past few years.” It seems though, that for every blues festival that fades away, a new one comes on the scene. It can be an origin story like the small group of blues lovers in Panhandle, Idaho, who were so far from a blues festival, they started their own with a field, a flat bed and a Facebook page. Or, often, a local blues society starts up a festival to bring the blues to their area and further educate the community. Some festivals arise out of the desire or need to support a charitable cause. When I asked one promoter why she started the San Felipe Blues & Arts Fiesta in San Felipe, Mexico 12 years ago, she answered, “We wanted to bring the blues to Baja! Why? Because we are f*@!!!ing crazy. Crazy for the blues that is!” Well, we are crazy for the blues too, and crazy about all the blues festivals we can choose from. And then there are the tried-and-true festivals that have been able to stick around through it all, celebrating decades of success, such as the MS Delta Blues & Heritage Festival, which is in its 41st year, and the Bentonia Blues Festival, celebrating its 43rd year. This 2018 Blues Festival Guide is sponsored by the Blues Foundation, and we share in their mission to preserve, celebrate and expand awareness of the blues. Get adventurous this year, go to a blues festival you haven’t previously attended. Patron these festivals not only to keep them going, but to enrich your own love of the blues. See you at the festivals! Kaati & The Blues Festival Guide Crew
In this Magazine FEATURED FESTIVALS.............................................................................. 7-46 Living Legend: Otis Rush by Jim O'Neal........................................................................................................ 48 Your Vinyl Exam by Rev. Billy C. Wirtz........................................................................................................... 54 Sauce Boss' Gumbo Funk with Bill Wharton................................................................................................... 56 Arkansas Blues by Don Wilcock..................................................................................................................... 60 Daughters of the Blues by Lynn Orman Weiss................................................................................................ 64 The Great Migration and the Blues by Jim O'Neal....................................................................................... 72 Toot to the Flute, Fife and Quills by Regi Oliver............................................................................................. 76 LRBC: The Love Boat by Claire Henderson...................................................................................................... 80 Producing Music by Albert Cummings, Michele Lundeen, Jim Pugh & John Shipley........................................... 82 Blues Radio .................................................................................................................................................... 86 My Brother Gave Me the Blues Our Facebook Followers Reminisce.............................................................. 87 Shopping for Talent by Stacy Jeffress............................................................................................................. 88 Blues Societies compiled by Heather Penrod-Rudd......................................................................................... 90 United by Music North America . ................................................................................................................ 92 KBA Awards .................................................................................................................................................. 96 Plan Your Blues Festival Calendar . ............................................................................................................ 98
Get Your Blues All Year ‘Round Blues Festival E-Guide newsletter. Sign up for your free subscription on our website today and expect our popular newsletter in your inbox every Thursday morning. Enjoy Festivals and Blues News on www.bluesfestivalguide.com with SEARCH functionality to find Festivals by name, location or date. Join our 200,000 Followers on Facebook.com/bluesfestivalguide - daily pertinent posts. Blues Festival Guide 2018
5
Featured Festivals The publisher, venues, promotors and musicians are not responsible for any changes or cancellation of events
SO CHECK BEFORE YOU GO & HAVE A BLUESY TIME!
Multiple Blues Music Award winner and Blues Hall of Famer, the irreplaceable and revered stalwart of the blues harmonica, Charlie Musselwhite. He came up on the Southside of Chicago in the early '60s, and is still on top of his game 50 years later. Photo by Claire Henderson
Acres of Blues..................................................32 Alpine Country Blues Festival............................ 11 Ann Arbor Blues Festival...................................26 Baja Blues Fest.................................................29 Bayfront Blues Festival......................................23 Bentonia Blues Festival...................................... 11 Big Blues Bender..............................................34 Big Bull Falls Blues Festival................................26 Big Muddy Blues Festival..................................28 Billtown Blues Festival.......................................10 Black Prairie Blues Festival................................31 Bloomington Boogies........................................25 Blue Ribbon Blues Fest......................................21 Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ....................................36 Blues & Swing Week.........................................18 Blues From the Top...........................................13 Blues Heaven Festival.......................................44 Blues on the Chippewa.....................................20 Blues on the Fox...............................................12 Blues on the Water...........................................22 Bluesapalooza.................................................20 Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival....................40 Brownsburg Blues and BBQ Festival...................35 Calgary International Bluesfest..........................19 Canal Winchester Blues & Ribfest......................19 Canton Blues Festival..........................................9
6
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Chain O'Lakes.................................................41 Chenango Blues Fest........................................27 Crescent City Blues and BBQ Festival.................42 Downtown Blues Concert..................................45 European Blues Cruise......................................36 Exit 56 Blues Fest...............................................8 Fargo Blues Festival..........................................27 Forgotten Music Festival....................................44 Gator by the Bay...............................................7 Grassroots Blues Festival...................................16 Greater Ozarks Music Festival..........................37 Greenville-Washington County CVB...................38 Hayward/Russell City Blues Festival...................17 Heritage Music Bluesfest...................................24 Hot Springs Blues Festival.................................32 Kansas City Kansas Street Blues Fest..................13 King Biscuit Blues Festival..................................41 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise.......................2 Library Park Blues Festival.................................37 Long Beach Bayou Festival................................14 Madison Ribberfest..........................................28 Mississippi Valley Blues Festival.........................15 MLK Jr. Blues Festival.......................................46 Monroe Balloon and Blues................................12 Mt. Baker Rhythm & Blues Festival.....................21 NCFBS Women in Blues Showcase.......................7
New Albany Blues Brew & BBQ Festival...........100 Paxico Blues Fest..............................................38 Reading Blues Festival......................................45 Rentiesville Dusk til Dawn Blues Festival.............31 Roadhouse Blues Festival..................................18 Rowan Blues and Jazz Festival..........................43 Russian River Blues Festival...............................10 Sam Chatmon Music Festival.............................39 San Diego Blues Festival...................................35 Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival..............8 Southern Fried Blues & Wine Fundraiser............17 Spirit of Kansas Blues Festival............................14 Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival.............24 Tall City Blues Fest............................................15 T-Bone Walker Day..........................................43 TD Kitchener Blues Festival................................23 Thunder Bay Blues Festival................................16 Tim Horton's Southside Shuffle...........................33 Trinidaddio Blues Fest.......................................30 Vancouver Island Blues Bash.............................33 Wall Hill Blues Fest.............................................9 Wasaga Beach Blues........................................39 Waukesha Blues Fest........................................25 Windy City Blues Fest.......................................40
May 10-13
May 20
Gator by the Bay
San Diego, CA
NCFBS Women in Blues Showcase
Gainesville, FL
Blues Festival Guide 2018
7
May 26-27
Exit 56 Blues Fest
Brownsville, TN
May 26-27
Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival
Simi Valley, CA
8
Blues Festival Guide 2018
May 27
Wall Hill Blues Fest
Byhalia, MS
June 8-9
Canton Blues Festival
Canton, OH
Blues Festival Guide 2018
9
June 10
Billtown Blues Festival
Hughesville, PA
June 10
Russian River Blues Festival
Guerneville, CA
10
Blues Festival Guide 2018
June 11-16
Bentonia Blues Festival
June 15-16
Alpine Country Blues Festival
Bentonia, MS
Alpine, AZ
Blues Festival Guide 2018
11
June 15-16
Blues on the Fox
Aurora, IL
June 15-16
Monroe Balloon and Blues
Monroe, WI
12
Blues Festival Guide 2018
June 23-24
June 23
Blues From the Top
Winter Park, CO
Kansas City Kansas Street Blues Fest
Kansas City, KS
Blues Festival Guide 2018
13
June 23-24
July 4
14
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Long Beach Bayou Festival
Spirit of Kansas Blues Festival
Long Beach, CA
Topeka, KS
July 6-7
Mississippi Valley Blues Festival
July 6-8
Tall City Blues Fest
Davenport, IA
Midland, TX
Blues Festival Guide 2018
15
July 6-8
Thunder Bay Blues Festival
July 13-14
16
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Grassroots Blues Festival
Thunder Bay, ON, Canada
Duck Hill, MS
July 7-8
Hayward/Russell City Blues Festival
Hayward, CA
Blues Festival Guide 2018
17
July 21
July 22-27
18
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Roadhouse Blues Festival
Blues & Swing Week
Magnolia, DE
Elkins, WV
July 27-28
Jul. 30-Aug. 5
Canal Winchester Blues & Ribfest
Calgary International Bluesfest
Canal Winchester, OH
Calgary, AB, Canada
Blues Festival Guide 2018
19
Aug. 2-5
Bluesapalooza
Aug. 3-5
Blues on the Chippewa
20
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Mammoth Lakes, CA
Durand, WI
Aug. 3-5
Aug. 4
Mt. Baker Rhythm & Blues Festival
Deming, WA
Blue Ribbon Blues Fest
Farifield, IA
Blues Festival Guide 2018
21
Aug. 4
22
Blues on the Water, The Toledo Blues Festival
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Toledo, OH
Aug. 9-12
Aug. 10-12
TD Kitchener Blues Festival
Bayfront Blues Festival
Kitchener, ON, Canada
Duluth, MN
Blues Festival Guide 2018
23
Aug. 10-12
Heritage Music Bluesfest
Wheeling, WV
Aug. 10-12
Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival
Clarksdale, MS
24
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Aug. 10-11
Waukesha Blues Fest
Delafield, WI
Aug. 12
Bloomington Boogies
Bloomington, IN
Blues Festival Guide 2018
25
Aug. 17-18
Ann Arbor Blues Festival
Aug. 17-18
Big Bull Falls Blues Festival
26
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Ann Arbor, MI
Wausau, WI
Aug. 17-18
Chenango Blues Fest
Norwich, NY
Aug. 17-18
Fargo Blues Festival
Fargo, ND
Blues Festival Guide 2018
27
Aug. 17-18
Aug. 31-Sept. 2
28
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Madison Ribberfest
Madison, IN
Big Muddy Blues Festival
St. Louis, MO
Aug. 17-19
Baja Blues Fest
Rosarito, Baja, MX
Blues Festival Guide 2018
29
Aug. 25
30
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Trinidaddio Blues Fest
Trinidad, CO
Aug. 31
Aug. 31-Sept. 2
Black Prairie Blues Festival
West Point, MS
Rentiesville Dusk til Dawn Blues Festival
Rentiesville, OK
Blues Festival Guide 2018
31
Sept. 1
Sept. 1-2
32
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Hot Springs Blues Festival
Acres of Blues
Hot Springs, AR
Eureka, CA
Sept. 1-3
Sept. 7-9
Vancouver Island Blues Bash
Tim Horton's Southside Shuffle
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Mississauga, ON, Canada
Blues Festival Guide 2018
33
Sept. 6-9
34
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Big Blues Bender
Las Vegas, NV
Sept. 8
San Diego Blues Festival
San Diego, CA
Sept. 9
Brownsburg Blues and BBQ Festival
Brownsburg, IN
Blues Festival Guide 2018
35
Sept. 10-15
Sept. 15
36
Blues Festival Guide 2018
European Blues Cruise
Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ
Nice/Marseilles, France
Blue Ridge, GA
Sept. 15
Library Park Blues Festival
Sept. 15
Greater Ozarks Music Festival
Woburn, MA
Nixa, MO
Blues Festival Guide 2018
37
Sept. 15-Oct. 13
Greenville-Washington County CVB
Sept. 15
38
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Paxico Blues Fest
Greenville, MS
Paxico, KS
Sept. 15-16
Sept. 21-22
Wasaga Beach Blues Wasaga Beach, ON, Canada
Sam Chatmon Music Festival
Hollandale, MS
Blues Festival Guide 2018
39
Sept. 22-23
Windy City Blues Fest
Sept. 28-29
Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival
40
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Lyons, IL
Bogalusa, LA
Oct. 3-6
King Biscuit Blues Festival
Helena, AR
Oct. 5-6
Chain O'Lakes
Waupaca, WI
Blues Festival Guide 2018
41
Oct. 12-14
42
Crescent City Blues and BBQ Festival
Blues Festival Guide 2018
New Orleans, LA
Oct. 20
Rowan Blues and Jazz Festival
Oct. 20
T-Bone Walker Day
Salisbury, NC
Linden, TX
Blues Festival Guide 2018
43
Nov. 2-3
Blues Heaven Festival
Frederickshavn, DK
Nov. 2-3
Forgotten Music Festival
Mexico Beach, FL
44
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Nov. 16-18
Nov. 30
Reading Blues Festival
Downtown Blues Concert
Reading, PA
Gainesville, FL
Blues Festival Guide 2018
45
Jan. 17-20, 2019
46
Blues Festival Guide 2018
MLK Jr. Blues Festival
Chester, SC
Living Legend:
Otis Rush
“Let Me Hear You Say Yeah!”
Otis Rush, recording his album Cold Day in Hell on his birthday, April 29, 1975. Photo by Amy van Singel, courtesy BluEsoterica Archives
As soon as Otis Rush’s first record, “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” hit the streets in 1956, it was clear that an extraordinary young blues talent had emerged. The intensity and passion of that record would characterize Rush’s best moments, on record and onstage, throughout his career, with the record hitting the rhythm and blues charts and bringing Otis national bookings. Otis Rush can indeed be proud of many highlights over the years, as well as the influence his music exerted on Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others. But his career never reached the heights that his talent merited. He recorded masterpieces like “Double Trouble” and “All Your Love (I Miss Loving).” He could amaze audiences with his guitar excursions or evoke tears or goosebumps (mine included) with the sheer depth of emotion in his singing and playing. That was more than enough for diehard fans, but maybe Otis needed more showmanship and upbeat music to reach a wider audience. He certainly needed better luck and, from his point of view, he deserved better treatment from
record companies, better pay for his talent and more respect from the music world. Frustration, distrust and other problems plagued him. Yet he could still find release when he was on stage and his brilliance could shine. Blues ran deep in Otis Rush, and not just in a musical sense. When he sang “Some of this generation is millionaires, it’s hard for me to keep decent clothes to wear” in “Double Trouble,” he was echoing pain and shame that dated back to the hardships and poverty of his childhood. Born on a farm near Philadelphia, MS, on April 29, 1934 (or sometime between 1932 and 1935 – no birth certificate exists), he left home as a teenager, got married and farmed on his own before he settled in Chicago and started working a series of day jobs. His main musical influence initially was Muddy Waters, but Otis’ unique style, shaped by his self-taught method of holding the guitar upside down so he could play left-handed, owed more to T-Bone Walker, B.B. King and later to Albert King. But he incorporated bits and pieces from many sources, from Charles Brown to Jody Williams to Jimmy Smith, and once told me he tried to make his guitar sound like the way his older brother Leroy whistled.
Otis at Wise Fools Pub in Chicago, 1975. Photo by Amy van Singel, courtesy BluEsoterica Archive
Performing for a British television crew at Eddie's Place in Chicago, 1975. Photo by Amy van Singel, courtesy BluEsoterica Archives
By Jim O’Neal
48
Blues Festival Guide 2018
While playing in the clubs of the South and West Sides, Otis came to the attention of famed songwriter-producer Willie Dixon. “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” a Dixon composition, was the first release on a new label, Cobra. Ads touting the “21-yearold sensation” appeared as the record climbed the charts. His second record, “My Love Will Never Die,” a dramatic minor-key blues with unforgettable falsetto highlights, earned a Cash Box “Award o’ the Week.” In a 1957 Cash Box poll, the nation’s R&B disc jockeys voted Otis the most promising “Up-and-Coming Male Vocalist.” Now a hot act in the Chicago clubs, Otis also began touring, sometimes with R&B and rock ‘n roll package shows at top venues including the Apollo in New York. Promoters may have believed that as a young, good-looking act, he had teen appeal, and he was booked on bills with the likes of Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and the Drifters. But Otis’ blues may have been too deep for the younger set, or else his aversion to touring started to surface. Soon he was back to playing the local clubs, where his blues continued to draw good crowds. The failure of his other Cobra singles to sell well nationally despite their musical excellence was also a source of disillusionment, setting an unfortunate precedent for his career. His 1956-1959 Cobra sides – eight singles and a number of alternate takes – are still regarded as a benchmark of electric blues and set a standard that even Otis was challenged to meet in the years to come. In 1960, Dixon took Otis to Chess Records, where he cut another classic, “So Many Roads,” and in 1962 he did a session for Duke Records highlighted by “Homework.” But again, no hits resulted. For several years, Otis led one of the best bands in Chicago but did no recording except for a few tracks on Vanguard’s Chicago/The Blues/Today! series and a few more in Germany on tour with the 1966 American Folk Blues Festival. The 1960s blues revival brought him a white following in America and Europe that would become his primary base of support. His first LPs were a compilation of his Cobra sides and a Muscle Shoals studio album that helped bring his name to the fore again in 1969: Mourning in the Morning. Otis, however, was less than fond of the final product. As Otis’ friend, noted blues aficionado and producer Dick Shurman says, “Neither the road nor the studio really agreed with him, and sometimes the tension associated with a new release and touring seemed to make things even worse.” By the time Living Blues magazine published its first issue in 1970, I and my ex-wife Amy van Singel, one of the other magazine cofounders, were already Otis Rush fanatics. Together with Dick, we interviewed Otis several times and attended a recording session he did for the Delmark LP Cold Day in Hell in 1975, in addition to many of his shows. Amy took photos for a “lost” album (and one of Otis’ best), Right Place, Wrong Time, that had been shelved until Dick helped rescue it and find a label, Bullfrog, to release it. That was the extent of my relationship with Otis until 1983. At that point,
Rooster Blues Records publicity photo, 1985. Photo by Kirk West, courtesy BluEsoterica Archives
Otis had taken a job at a store on the South Side and was playing only when called to go to Japan, where he had met his wife Masaki in 1975, or to Tramps, a club in New York. Then saxophonist Abb Locke convinced him to play on a recording session for a 45 that Abb made for Rooster Blues (another enterprise Amy and I cofounded with friends). I wanted to see Otis back on the scene and recording again, and a young musician I had met, Dan Ivankovich (now known as Dr. Dan), got Otis some local gigs. Offers for outof-town work started to come in and I helped as I could. One day Otis told me, “You’re my manager.” That was never my intention, but when the master calls, as they say... I traveled with Otis to the West Coast in 1985. He played with pickup bands at each stop with varying results, but one performance, with the Bobby Murray band at the San Francisco Blues Festival, came off without a hitch. Festival Director Tom Mazzolini taped the set, which he rightly considered good enough for an album. I turned it down (not a wise decision in retrospect) because I preferred to give Otis the chance to record some originals and songs that he had not recorded before, and to record them the way he wanted. Blind Pig Records made a deal for the live album and gave it the title Tops.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
49
Publicity poster for Otis’ first Texas tour in 1957. Photo by Jim O’Neal, courtesy BluEsoterica Archive
In 1986 and again in 1989, with Dick’s assistance, Otis did go into the studio for Rooster Blues, but the planned album was never finished. Otis later recorded some of the same songs, including the title track, for a This Way Up/Mercury CD produced by John Porter that earned a Grammy nomination in 1994: Ain’t Enough Comin’ In. My stint as manager ended in 1986 after I moved to Mississippi, and Otis continued to perform under the management of Rick Bates, who still looks after Otis’ interests today. His last full studio album, Any Place I’m Going on the House of Blues label in 1998, finally won Otis his first Grammy. Over the years, many tapes of Otis’ live performances have been released on LP and CD. Studio recordings from Europe have also been reissued in the U.S. But bigger opportunities were spurned or missed for one reason or another. Dick notes, “I wish things like recording and touring with the Rolling Stones, being the second Blue Sky artist after Muddy Waters, and recording with Carlos Santana had worked out. But what he managed to achieve, and has left for posterity, remains staggering.” In a Living Blues interview published in 1976, we asked Otis what he did in his spare time. “I don’t do nothin’ but worry,” he said. “Plannin’ and not gettin’ no money…Yeah, that’s about what I do, worry about my damn hard times and bills.” The years of worry, tension and frustration took their toll. In 2004, Otis suffered a stroke in Chicago and has been unable to perform again. There have, however, been moments to celebrate. In 2007 he, Masaki and their daughter Sophie traveled to Philadelphia, MS, for the dedication of a Mississippi Blues Trail marker in his honor. In 2016, Dick organized a memorable tribute by a stellar cast of performers to Otis at the Chicago Blues Festival. A smiling Otis was able to summon his familiar shout-out to the audience one more time: “Let me hear you say yeah!” Jim O’Neal is a cofounding editor of Living Blues magazine, research director with the Mississippi Blues Trail and coeditor of the book The Voice of the Blues. He operates a mail order business (Stackhouse & BluEsoterica, 3516 Holmes St., Kansas City MO 64109, www.bluesoterica.com) buying and selling records, magazines and memorabilia.
50
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Blues 101: Your Vinyl Exam
How to Buy, Sell & Collect Vinyl Photo by Claire Henderson
By Reverend Billy C. Wirtz One of my favorite old video clips involves a middleaged white guy smashing records and loudly proclaiming “Rock and Roll has got to go!” It’s from the ’50s, when they were worried that “Negro music” would cause promiscuity, desegregate public facilities and cause mixing of the races. He was right, thank goodness. Had the DJ been attempting to cut up compact discs, the effect would have been far less dramatic. Blues, gospel, hillbilly and jazz were all made in little tiny studios, live concert halls and even living rooms. They were recorded on primitive equipment; tape hiss, the occasional pop and all kinds of surface noise were common. It was a sound meant to be heard on vinyl. Blues and roots music on CD is kind of like frozen pizza – it’s close, but not quite. Muddy Waters on CD is the goodnight handshake, Muddy Waters on vinyl is second base. Vinyl has also become highly collectible; don’t take that box of records to the church yard sale just yet, or at least consider the following before you do. “What condition is it in?” About 80% of old albums are worth maybe $5. Of the remaining 20%, the artist, genre, vinyl condition, rarity, issue date, cover condition, tape marks, writing on cover, etc. – it all subtracts or adds to the value of a record. Long before eBay, there was a publication called Goldmine. The primary source for obsessive collectors, it featured page after page of
54
Blues Festival Guide 2018
microscopic text, real cool interviews and a grading system for vinyl records. The grading system has become the standard for eBay and the other sites. For a complete rundown, go to www.goldmine.com. Mint (M): An absolutely perfect record. Looks like it just came from the pressing plant. Sealed. Near Mint (NM): Looks like it just came from the store. An almost perfect record. No scratches, marks, blemishes of any kind. Often sealed as well. Cover cannot have any writing or damage. Very Good Plus (VG+): No major scratches or clicks and pops on the vinyl. Cover cannot have any major damage. Very Good (VG): Record plays, but with some surface noise that does not overpower the music. Cover shows signs of handling. May have some writing and seam damage. Good (G): A little deceptive. Good actually means not very good, noticeable scratches. Label wear, cover may have several flaws. Fair (F): Really trashed. Occasionally you see Poor (P), but this is usually about as low as it gets. “What’s the going price on eBay?” There are several sites that can give you an idea of how much a record is worth. Along with eBay, there are three collectors sites listed below that can tell you the going price for your record. Notice that in most cases, the high dollar records are almost all listed as NM. This is a very strict grade,
and it means that your Hank Ballard album must look like it just come off the rack at Record City. eBay is the first place most folks look. To find out how much your record is selling for, do the following: 1. Type name of the album and add LP to search term (for example, East-West Paul Butterfield LP) In this case, there are eight listings. The price ranges from a super rare Japanese promo version for $399 to several for around $14. 2. Go to the upper right-hand corner and tap the “Filter” icon. This will pull up a “Sort By” menu. Go down and click “Sold Items.” Sellers can ask whatever they want, but this is the current market value. Once again, you may see several prices. Notice that the differences depend on the label and whether or not it’s in mono or stereo. If you have a nice copy of a U.S. pressing, it’s probably worth around $15. Along with eBay, you can check out collectorsfrenzy.com and popsike.com to get an idea of the going price. “What do collectors look for?” Don’t expect that just because an album is old, it will bring big bucks. Opera, classical, big band and pop singers are rarely worth much. The good news is that blues is one of the more sought-after genres. Blues 78s: If, by some miracle, you stumble across a blues 78rpm vinyl record in VG or better, it’s worth something. How much depends again on the artist and its condition. Most bring $10-$20. Not to get your hopes up, but if you find an original Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown or (good luck) Robert Johnson, you are looking at serious money. To get that kind of money, you will need to deal with 78 collectors, the lifeguards of the Anal Retention Pond. For a great book on the strange world of these collectors, read Do Not Sell At Any Price by Amanda Petrusich. Blues 45s: They are hard to find, but highly collectible. Look for VG or better copies, and keep an eye out for any listed as “promotional.” These often bring a higher price. Blues LPs: Blues LPs didn’t really come on the scene till the early ‘60s. Labels like Chess realized that white kids with stereos were buying blues records, and so they packed several greatest hits collections. Many of these contain fabulous music and are very collectible. Even later collections from the ‘70s and ‘80s have value. Most of the great blues were recorded on little privately owned labels. It’s the American diversity story at its best. Small labels owned mostly by Eastern European Jews on the run from Joe and Adolph were recording the music of Southern Blacks and changing Western culture. The following labels are a few of the places where you find music that’s both collectible and well worth listening to: King, Sun, Chess, Checker, Specialty, Duke, Peacock, Imperial, RPM, Modern, Aladdin, Goldband, Blue Note (mainly jazz but very valuable) and Alligator.
Skully Owens, also known as "Uncle Pop," spends a lot of time building his vinyl collection. Photo by Claire Henderson
“So, what do I do with it?” So now that you are thanking me for saving that Sonny Boy Williamson album you were getting ready to yard sale, here are your options: Sell it online: Expect to get burned, especially if you are new to the game, but with a little practice, you’ll catch on. Take it to the local used record store: Don’t expect more than 25% of the value of a collectible record, be prepared to get a bulk price for the rest. Donate to your local library: A great gesture and a nice tax write off. You can write off 100% of the listed value per record! Save them for the grandkids: One of the most enduring legacies of our generation is the music we brought to the world. If you’re reading this at a festival, you are enjoying part of that legacy now. Stash those records in a safe and dry place, and some day, along with your stories about Watergate and Woodstock, you can turn the grandkids on to Muddy Waters. Now how cool is that? Reverend Billy lives in Ocala, FL, with his girlfriend Linda, eight cats and one horse. He tours, has a radio show and sells collectible records. Find him on Facebook at William Wirths, online at revbillycwirtz.com, or contact directly: revbilly88@aol.com. For questions about records, email the Rev or check out his online records stores: Discogs.com/user/planetrevrecords and stores.ebay.com/planetrevrecords
Blues Festival Guide 2018
55
Gumbo Funk: The Low-Down Cookin with Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton
At every gig, the Sauce Boss cooks a big pot of gumbo while smoking his slide guitar and creating a shared sense of community. Photo by Ruth Wharton
Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton is no stranger to swamp funk, being born and raised in pre-Disney Orlando. Growing up in the eye of a storm, he’s accustomed to rattlesnakes, mosquitoes, sunburns and hurricanes. A sardonic sense of humor, original style of songwriting and serious love of food give his work a taste of the real Florida. As the Sauce Boss sings, “Alligator…you’re my favorite dish.” He serves up blues with a "bite!" Out of the kitchen, Wharton’s writing has been an inspiration to many other artists. Wharton’s tune, “Let The Big Dog Eat,” was featured in Jonathan Demme’s movie, Something Wild. It was also included on Jimmy Buffett’s album Late Night Menu, and has been covered numerous times. Most recently, Albert Castiglia released Big Dog, and "Let The Big Dog Eat" became his theme song, garnering 12 weeks at #1 on the Roots Music Report. We’ve all been to parties where everyone eventually ends up in the kitchen. On stage, the Boss brings the kitchen – complete with his own Liquid Summer Hot Sauce – and cooks a big pot of gumbo while smoking his slide guitar, singing in a soulful, gravelly voice and playing a drum kit with his feet. Soon, the barriers between everyone melt away into a community of gumbo. It’s a soul-shouting picnic of rock 'n roll brotherhood. “You take that 53 Telecaster, pump it through that old tweed Fender amp, add a bass rig, mix in some drums, all simmered down over some funky swamp blues and smothered with gumbo, and you got a recipe for a party!” After a few tunes, the audience is invited to come and literally stir the gumbo. More often than not, there’s a competition of who’s got the best stirring “chops.” Serious slide guitar work is peppered with tunes like “Okra,” “Chicken in the Gumbo” and “Cathead Biscuit Gospel.” At the end of the show, everybody
56
Blues Festival Guide 2018
gets a bowl. “Gumbo is many different ingredients coming together to make a dish for all. We are all different, but if we can come together and celebrate our differences, treat each other like neighbors rather than enemies, then maybe we can work some of this stuff out,” says Wharton. So how did he get here from there? It’s all about the food. “If it hadn’t been for my hot sauce, this crazy gumbo crusade would have never happened. Liquid Summer Hot Sauce changed my life. When I first started making it, my friends would come to my house and eat up all my hot sauce. I’d make a couple gallons and it would be gone in a couple of weeks. So I slapped some labels on some bottles, and I was in business. I began to carry it to my gigs. I became the Sauce Boss.” While recording The Sauce Boss (Kingsnake Records, 1989), and hanging out with label mate Raful Neal, Wharton noticed some kinda ruckus in the kitchen. Raful’s wife, Shirley, was making gumbo. The Sauce Boss watched her like a hawk, and that night he learned to make gumbo…the right way. Over almost three decades, the Sauce Boss has roamed over a million miles, playing concerts and feeding way over 200,000 people…for free. That’s right. FREE! Although most Sauce Boss shows are ticketed events, he has never charged a penny for the gumbo. It’s a message of sharing. It’s community. He has taken his blues and a huge pot of gumbo all across the U.S., Canada and Europe. Wharton has also developed a non-profit foundation called Planet Gumbo – taking it to the disaster zones of the Mississippi Delta, to soup kitchens and homeless shelters across America, where he’s fed war veterans, hurricane survivors and plenty of folks who are down on their luck. Planet Gumbo aims to bring joy and sustenance to homeless people through music and gumbo, as well as raise community awareness of the plight
To learn more about the Sauce Boss and his projects, visit: Sauceboss.com, Planetgumbo.org and Facebook.com/BillSauceBossWharton
GUMBO RECIPE
Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton serves up blues with a “bite!" Photo by Eric Ilasenko
of the homeless. Since 2003, the Sauce Boss has performed over 115 shows for Planet Gumbo and served over 12,000 bowls of gumbo as part of this initiative. Additionally, Planet Gumbo volunteers fed over 250 homeless men, women and children monthly at The Shelter in Tallahassee, FL, from April 2004 through September 2015 – that’s over 30,000 bowls of gumbo, along with cooked veggies, fresh fruit and bread. They now serve 80 meals monthly at Tallahassee’s Hope Community Family Shelter. “We are a gumbo!” Sauce Boss proclaims. His fans come for music but leave with much more. The Sauce Boss offers up sustenance and redemption in the form of music, food and, above all, brotherhood of all mankind.
2 cups flour 1 cup oil 1 chicken, cooked, de-boned and shredded 1 gallon chicken stock 2 large onions, diced 2 large green peppers, diced ½ bottle of Liquid Summer Hot Sauce
1 pound smoked sausage, sliced 2 medium zucchini, sliced 1 pound okra, sliced 1 pound shrimp 1 pint oysters 1 pound crawdads
Make a roux: mix 2 cups of flour into 1 cup hot oil. Cook on high, stirring constantly until chocolate brown. Add the chicken, chicken stock, onions and green peppers. Bring to a boil, then simmer down, uncovered. Add salt to taste and… (drum roll) Bill Wharton’s Liquid Summer Hot Sauce. Slice and add the sausage, zucchini and okra. After the okra is almost done (about 10-15 minutes), turn up the heat and add shrimp, oysters and crawdads. Cook for 3 minutes, or until the seafood is just barely cooked. Serve over rice and splash with more Liquid Summer Hot Sauce. Feeds 8-12 people.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
57
58
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Blues Festival Guide 2018
59
Arkansas Blues in the Dirt & on the Air The Delta Sounds exhibit at the Delta Cultural Center features the blues legends influential to the music of the Arkansas Delta. Photo courtesy of the Delta Cultural Center
By Don Wilcock As a teenager, B.B. King was still working in the cotton fields of Indianola, MS, but on lunch break he would listen to Sonny Boy Williamson (II) and his King Biscuit Entertainers on KFFA-FM 1360 out of Helena, AR, a hundred miles away. “I used to listen to KFFA every day. I was in the fields plowing, [the King Biscuit Time show] did good for me ’cause I enjoyed it.” B.B. was 16 when the show came on the air in 1941. The program was the first to feature African American artists performing live on the air for 15 minutes at lunch time. It was a clarion call to the world that blues was more than a local phenomenon confined to Saturday night fish fries and chitlin circuit juke joints. King Biscuit Time emanating from Helena, a world port on the Mississippi River, was facilitating an expansion of the genre that would soon influence popular music worldwide and offer at least the hint of a way out of poverty for African Americans toiling on southern cotton plantations. B.B. worked in the field from “can to can’t.” In other words, from the time you can see until you can’t. King Biscuit Time was turning B.B. and a growing number of people onto the blues. He started busking in the streets. “People would come up and ask if I would play a blues. I knew some, and some I pretended, but I
60
Blues Festival Guide 2018
sang blues, and I could sing pretty good. They would always tip me. Driving tractor was one of the highest paying jobs for farm hands, and they paid $22.50 a week. So, when I’d go to town and sit on the street corner and play, sometimes I’d make $50 or $60. I have made as high as $100 one evening. Now, you see why I’m a blues singer?” King Biscuit Time continues to broadcast Delta blues music to this day, chalking up more than 17,600 episodes. That’s more than the Grand Ole Opry – making it not only the first live blues show, but the longest running music show in the world. It was a springboard for harmonica player and singer Sonny Boy Williamson, guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr., pianist Pinetop Perkins and many others who performed live on the air in the earliest days. Sunshine Sonny Payne was 17 when he first went to work at the station in 1941: “When we started the radio station, we had B.B. and all of ’em coming there out of the fields. They heard it on the radio. When KFFA went on the air in 1941, Interstate Grocery owner Max Moore told Sonny Boy Williamson if he sold a railroad car of King Biscuit Flour, he’d sponsor him on the air for $12.50 a week,” recalls Sonny. By 1951, Sonny Payne had become the full-time host of King
Blues Festival Guide Publisher Kaati (right) and her sister Julia (left) visiting long-time King Biscuit Time host “Sunshine” Sonny Payne at the KFFA station
Biscuit Time, opening each broadcast with “Pass the biscuits! It’s King Biscuit Time” and playing classic blues mixed with newer tracks. The show then expanded to a half hour and aired each weekday from 12:15–12:45 pm. Health permitting, Sonny continued to host the show until he passed away in February of this year. King Biscuit Time gave the city of Helena, the state of Arkansas and Delta blues in general a much larger audience beyond the sharecroppers, juke joint patrons and record buyers, and almost immediately changed the paradigm of how blues was presented and promoted. Jim Howe became the owner of KFFA in 1951. He comes from a family that for generations owned a lumber company on thousands of acres of land in nearby Wabash: “I remember the King Biscuit Boys coming to the Wabash store. They’d holler ‘The King Biscuit Boys are over there.’ We’d run across the railroad tracks and go and listen. That was part of the sponsoring with Mr. Moore. He said, ‘On weekends I want you all to go down to these country stores and advertise King Biscuit Flour.’ They’d come down in the old truck, and they had a piano sitting on the back of the truck. It weighed about 400 lbs. King Biscuit Time entertainers (l to r) Sonny Boy Williamson, Frank Frost and Sam Carr. Photo courtesy of the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
sitting up there on the back. They’d be beating on the piano and the rest would be picking and singing.” King Biscuit Time was beaming into homes and businesses, presenting essentially live sets by Sonny Boy Williamson, a singer and harmonica player who, by 1941, had already played with the "Father of the Blues" Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Robert Nighthawk. Sonny Boy brought Robert Johnson’s stepson Robert Lockwood Jr. and keyboard wizard Pinetop Perkins with him into the studio and went on to tour the world, performing and recording “real” blues with rock stars he’d influenced, including Eric Clapton of The Yardbirds, Eric Burden of The Animals, and Robbie Robertson of The Band. Long after Sonny Boy Williamson died in 1965, the show continued to feature blues artists as guests, as well as pop music icons like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Elvis Costello and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top – illustrating the influence that blues, and the show in particular, have had on music around the world. As a youngster, Levon Helm, who went on to form The Band, used to take the only elevator in Arkansas up to the fifth floor of the Helena National Bank building and sit cross-legged in the studio as Sonny Boy, Lockwood, Pinetop Perkins, Houston Stackhouse and drummer James “Peck” Curtis played live on the air. Muddy Waters was also among those tuning in. As small as this tiny radio station is, it was located in what at the time was a critical port city on the mighty Mississippi River, a gateway to America’s heartland from New Orleans to Minnesota. Noted musicologist Dennis McNally writes in his epic history of American music Highway 61 – Music,
Blues Festival Guide 2018
61
Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom, “There in the stable, dependable center of America was a pathway of phenomenal energy, a dynamic river that grew only stronger as it approached the gulf. From St. Louis south, music would manifest itself alongside it.” Scott Lunsford, the Associate Director of the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas, describes pre-war Helena as a vital port city and the hotspot. “Morse Gist’s dad got the first juke box concession in Helena. If a juke box broke down in the middle of the night, he went out and fixed it ’cause the juke joints were still going strong at two or three o’clock in the morning. Gist used to sell worn-out juke box blues records. They started out black, and by the time they came out of the juke box they were literally white, and he could take those worn out records and sell them on the corner, they were so popular.” Since 1986, the annual King Biscuit Blues Festival has brought the Arkansas blues legacy into the 21st century. Sterling Billingsley, a Helena native and leader of his own blues band, books the festival. “We’ve helped cultivate a lot of people’s careers here, and they’ll be the first to tell ya, ‘That’s where I became somebody, at the King Biscuit.’ To the real diehard blues players, this is the Holy Grail, not Chicago or New Orleans.” Bubba Sullivan is the one of the founders and unofficial Godfather of the Biscuit. “In 2013 when Greg Allman played here, and they asked him, ‘Do you know where you’re playing? Do you know the significance of you being on stage?’ He said, ‘Yes, I understand the importance of being on this stage where the music of all these musicians we copy is played.’” The 2017 Blues Grammy winner Bobby Rush and Memphisbased blues singer Reba Russell are two artists who call the Biscuit their second home. Bobby Rush: “The people here let me cross over. They accept me for who I am. I have crossed over to a white audience that follows Bobby Rush, but I haven’t crossed off the black audience. I have come from the middle road.” Reba Russell: “I totally think there is something that rises up from that river and that dirt at King Biscuit. I think that the
Robert Lockwood Jr., performing here at the 2006 King Biscuit Blues Festival, was among the original performers of King Biscuit Time. Photo by © Eric Gorder 2006
ancestry, the ghost, everything remains there. That whole part of the country is just filled with the spirit of pain. Nothing has ever made me feel like that place makes me feel, nowhere that I’ve ever gone.” Artists born in Arkansas include King Biscuit entertainers Sonny Boy Williamson (II), Robert Lockwood Jr., Frank Frost, Sam Carr and James “Beck” Curtis. Other Arkansas natives whose influence has been felt in popular music around the world include: the Godmother of Rock 'n Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe; Chicago blues giants Luther Allison, James Cotton and Son Seals; The Band founder Levon Helm; country giants Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and Glenn Campbell; early rockabilly pioneers Ronnie Hawkins, Billy Lee Riley and Sonny Burgess; Stax soul star Johnnie Taylor; blues rocker Roy Buchanan; Ernie and Earl Cate; Lonnie Shields; and Cedell Davis. Most of them have played the Biscuit. Don Wilcock will host his eighth annual Call and Response Seminar on October 7, 2018 at the King Biscuit Blues Festival. His interviews with several of the artists mentioned in this article are available at the University of Arkansas Pryor Center, Projects, Helena, Arkansas web page. He writes for several blues websites and magazines and can be reached at donwilcock@msn.com.
62
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Daughters of the Blues By Lynn Orman Weiss From “Mojo Working” to “Bright Lights, Big City,” the daughters of blues legends bring seeds of songs from their legendary fathers to stages around the world. Those that don’t carry a tune are carrying on their fathers’ legacies through the foundations they have created in their names. From the deep south to Memphis, Detroit, Texas, Chicago and L.A., these bluesmen came up the hard way. If you are born into a blues family, you are part of an elite royalty. These women of the great blues masters are deeply rooted to the family tree. They have brothers, sisters, halfsiblings they know and some they have never met. Yet, they are the ones to carry on their fathers’ names. Their fathers’ influences are vast, pedigrees impeccable and their music can be heard around the world – on stages, radio stations, online platforms, commercials and big screens – but the place they remember hearing the music the most was in their homes and in their hearts. Shirley King / B.B. King Shirley King is the eldest daughter of blues legend B.B. King and the only one of his children to grow up with the King family. At 13 years old, Shirley met her role model Etta James. Like Etta, Shirley has an undeniable stage presence and charisma. She belts out “The Thrill Is Gone” with her own banter, and moves on stage like a young shake dancer (most people knew her as “Shirley King, the Body Queen” back in the day). Today she has earned her title of “Daughter of the Blues.” Shirley’s new book, Love is King, tells her story and shares her voice of triumph. Shirley’s story reflects on the pain of a father who was always on the road. When asked if the blues is sad music, she quips, “I want people to laugh. It’s a total show, not just singing. My dad’s songs were ballads. Maybe they had some sad lyrics, but they were exciting too. He always put a punchline in there like, ‘Nobody loved me but my mother, but she might be jivin’, too.’” Shirley King belts it out on stage internationally and pays homage to the man who the world called a true American Ambassador of the Blues, but to Shirley, he is just, “Daddy,” and she is on a mission to keep his legacy alive and show the world that B.B. King’s thrill is Shirley King’s new book, here to stay! Love is King, contributes to preserving her father’s legacy
64
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Shemekia Copeland, age 11, with her dad Johnny Copeland at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Photo by John Hahn, courtesy of Shemekia Copeland
Shemekia Copeland / Johnny Clyde Copeland Shemekia Copeland, a three-time Grammy nominee and multiple Blues Music Award winner, began singing on stage with her father, Texas blues legend, Johnny Clyde Copeland, at just eight years old in Harlem’s famed Cotton Club. Born into the blues, Shemekia’s incomparable voice and songs have earned her the title “The New Queen of The Blues.” At 16, Shemekia joined her father on tours after he was diagnosed with a degenerative heart condition. Soon enough, Shemekia was opening, and sometimes even stealing, her father’s shows. Eventually, though, it became clear to Shemekia who was helping whom. “Dad wanted me to think I was helping him out by opening his shows when he was sick, but really he was doing it all for me. He would go out and do gigs so I would get known. He went out of his way to get me that exposure,” she recalls. Shemekia stepped out of her father’s shadow in 1998 with her groundbreaking debut album, Turn the Heat Up!, recorded when she was only 18. Since that time, she has been bringing her tireless, soulful voice to stages worldwide, often including his signature songs such as “Ghetto Child,” “Also Circumstances,” “Pie in The Sky” and “Devil’s Hand.” Shemekia is now a multiaward-winning artist and just last year, Johnny Copeland was inducted into the 2017 class of the Blues Hall of Fame. Every note she sings is in tribute to her dad. “I am proud to be Johnny Clyde Copeland’s daughter. My dad was very wise and I carry him with me on stage every time I perform,” she said. Her new album, to be released in May on Alligator Records, features “Promised Myself,” in tribute to her dad.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
65
Rose Reed / Jimmy Reed Jimmy Reed’s impact on Chicago and the African American culture is incomparable. His career was explosive, dynamic and crossed many genres from blues to soul to pop, and he inspired many great rock ‘n roll musicians as well. Eleven of his records made the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Chart, 14 on the R&B charts and countless renowned musicians covered his tunes. Perhaps, though, the most inspiration and impact he had was being a father. Rose Reed is one of eight children of Jimmy and Mary Reed. She remembers the love that flowed through her house – playing games, learning to ride bikes on the unfinished Dan Ryan highway, cooking holiday meals – all among kids, church members, family and musicians that stopped by. The kids were upstairs while jam sessions were in the basement. “It was a variety of players that came over. John Brill was always there. People would come over to play, to visit and eat. My mom was always there taking care of us kids and the musicians. She sang in the background a lot of the time... when Daddy was rehearsing, and at recording sessions too, she would be singing in his ear. She can be heard on his biggest hits like ‘Big Boss Man’ and ‘Bright Lights, Big City.’” The Reed family started the Jimmy and Mary Reed Foundation. “My sister Loretta, brother Jimmy and I are working on a lot of things to keep our daddy’s legacy alive. We are grateful for his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and 1980 Blues Hall of Fame Inductee, as well as multiple songs that have been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. We are hoping Jimmy Reed will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2019.” “Whenever I am on stage performing or giving a sermon in the ministry I can feel my daddy," said Rose. "He lives inside me always." Marion Diaz / Little Walter Jacobs In 1945, a 15-year-old harp player by the name of Marion “Little Walter” Jacobs from Louisiana traveled with David “Honeyboy” Edwards to Chicago. He met Bernard and Idel Abrams – the owners of Maxwell Street Radio and Records, which became a well-known sanctuary for musicians – and made his first recording for the Ora Nelle label in 1947. Little Walter utilized amplification and electronic distortion to explore new effects and not be drowned out by the guitar. By 1948, Little Walter had joined Muddy Waters’ band, and in 1950, he had his own hit song, “Juke.” Between 1952 and 1958, he scored 14 Top Ten hits. In 1953, Little Walter met Armille Williams, who became his bookkeeper and managed the business details on the road and in the studio. Little Walter and Armille had a daughter, Marion. “My dad was insistent that my mom name me Marion. I’m so proud to carry on his name and to be the president of the Little Walter Foundation. I was Daddy’s little girl. We spent a lot of time together when he was home, going to the park, taking me
66
Blues Festival Guide 2018
to school and on holidays. I loved Valentine’s Day because he would bring so much candy to the house, then come over and kiss and bite my cheeks,” remembers Marion. Little Walter had become a star, but the light went out much too early. At only 36 years old, he was killed in a street fight. It was a very emotional time for his young daughter, just 10 years old. It has become Marion’s mission to keep her father’s legacy alive. “Now it’s my turn to keep his music alive through the foundation.” The Rolling Stones tipped their hat to Little Walter on the Grammy-winning album this past January when the Stones won for Best Traditional Blues album, titled Blue and Lonesome, which features Little Walter’s tracks, “Blue and Lonesome,” “Hate to See You Go,” “Just Your Fool” and “I Gotta Go.” The City of Chicago will also honor Little Walter this summer at Chicago Blues Festival. Teeny Tucker / Tommy Tucker “I’m singin’ the blues for you, Daddy, and everything’s gonna be alright.” Those are the words of Teeny Tucker, the petite and powerful gospel-tinged blues singer – yes, she is Tommy’s girl! Teeny’s father is the incomparable Tommy Tucker whose hit song on Checker Records, “HiHeel Sneakers,” reached #1 on a 1964 Cash Box chart, #11 on the Daddy's girl Teeny with her father, Tommy Tucker. Photo courtesy of Teeny Tucker Billboard Hot 100 and was covered by more than 1,000 artists. “Put on your red dress, baby/ Lord, we’re goin’ out tonight” were the lyrics six-year-old Regina (Teeny) heard on the radio in her daddy’s Cadillac, blaring from the speakers. “He had just bought his first Cadillac and he picked me up in it. We turned on the radio and there it was, ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers,’” said Teeny. The little girl Tommy would take to jams and rehearsals in NYC was smitten with her daddy; she looked up to him as a “musical God” and wanted to be in the presence of him and his music. She wouldn’t leave the rehearsals like the other kids. Instead, Teeny slept under the Hammond B3 organ when his band rehearsed. Growing up with her mother in Dayton, OH, Teeny unleashed her soul in church where her God-given voice was embraced. Her soulful notes were a hit and she recorded her first gospel song when she was 14 years old. The turning point from gospel to the blues came when a European promoter who booked her dad offered to bring Teeny
Blues Festival Guide 2018
67
to Europe to perform at blues festivals – if she’d learn some blues songs. He gave her 20 songs and she learned them all. “I never turned back after that and now I’m finishing my sixth blues album. My daddy would be so proud of me.” Teeny received high praise for her tribute to Rosetta Tharpe’s 100th anniversary at Briggs Farm in Nescopeck, PA. Her educational program and master classes on Women In The Blues feature iconic blues women and is an annual presentation at Mississippi Valley State.
Chester Burnett a.k.a Howlin' Wolf met Barbra and Bettye’s mom, Lillie, at a club in Chicago and soon after, they fell in love. Barbra and Bettye were young girls when Howlin’ Wolf came into their lives. It was a love affair with Lillie and the girls that lasted until his untimely death in 1976 resulting from a kidney operation. Wolf was one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. A true ambassador of the blues, he brought the music of the Mississippi Delta to Chicago. In 1951, “Moanin’ at Midnight” became his first R&B hit song. Among his top hits were “Spoonful,” Killing Floor,” and Barbra and Bettye’s favorite song, “Smokestack Lightnin’.” The songs became international hits when covered by rock stars such as the Grateful Dead, The Yardbirds, Cream, The Doors and Led Zeppelin. Wolf was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame and received an honorary doctorate from Columbia College in Chicago. “The impact of his success never changed him. He remained humble. Even when he was on Shindig in 1965 we said, ‘Daddy you are going to be on T.V.’ and he said, ‘I know, I will see it later,’ and just went on the rest of his day. He felt blessed to be making music that people loved,” said Barbra. That day was historic; Wolf was one of the first black bluesmen on television. “It is our mission to carry on the Howlin’ Wolf legacy. Through the Howlin' Wolf Foundation we are working hard to keep the memory of our father and his music alive,” said Bettye. So many of these bluesmen who blazed a trail are gone, but the daughters of the blues are the dream weavers, the storytellers, the music makers, the gatekeepers to keeping their fathers’ legacies alive. With so many stories to tell, look out for more from the daughters of the blues in next year’s magazine!
Barbra Marks (top) and Bettye Kelly (bottom) with their mother Lillie and loving stepfather Chester Burnett a.k.a Howlin’ Wolf. Photos courtesy of Barbra Marks and Bettye Kelly
Barbra Marks and Bettye Kelly / Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett) On stage, Howlin’ Wolf would stir up a crowd, build up a frenzy and heat up a room… even put a little fear into the audience. Standing at 6’3” and 300 pounds, he loomed larger than life. At home, he was a gentle giant. “You could hear a little acoustic guitar all night long. When Daddy was home from a tour, he would go into his music room. It was a beautiful way to fall asleep. Sometimes when I woke up to go to school, I would find little scribbles of paper with lyrics on them,” remembers Barbra Marks.
68
Blues Festival Guide 2018
For the past 15 years Lynn Orman Weiss has preserved stories of blues legends and the history of the blues as a journalist, photographer and “storyographer.” She is the co-producer of the documentary Six Generations of the Blues; contributing writer to Big City Rhythm & Blues Magazine and Buddy Guy Magazine; does publicity work for David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Bobby Rush, Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, Ella Jenkins and Holle Thee Maxwell; helped establish the PCa Blue Foundation; broadcasts a weekly blues radio program on Chicago’s WLUW and WNUR stations; and is the founder of Blues On The North Shore and Women Of The Blues Foundation, which curates a traveling exhibit, Women of the Blues: A Coast To Coast Collection. Connect with Lynn: ormanmusic@gmail.com, Facebook/Orman Music & Media Group, Facebook/Blues On the North Shore, Twitter/Lynn Orman Weiss and Womenoftheblues.com.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
69
70
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Blues Festival Guide 2018
71
The Great Migration and the Blues Central Station in Chicago became the disembarkation point for Mississippians migrating north, now memorialized by a Mississippi Blues Trail marker Photo courtesy of the Mississippi Blues Commission
By Jim O’Neal The Great Migration – the movement of more than six million African Americans from the South to urban destinations in the northern and western states – vibrated to an ever-developing soundtrack of blues, jazz and gospel that found new strongholds far from the music’s Southern roots. Just as American society, politics and economy underwent transformations, so did the music. The Great Migration is often separated into two time periods, 1910 to 1940 and 1940 to 1970. The forces behind it were many, as African Americans left singly, with families or in groups in hopes of a better life outside the Old South. Many sought to escape racial oppression and discrimination and to find jobs in the city that were far more lucrative than the pay earned by farm workers, sharecroppers and other Southern laborers. The advent of the World Wars escalated the migration as the need for workers in defense plants and factories expanded beyond the available Northern labor force. With the migrants came their music, and while some ambitious musicians arrived with ideas of starting or furthering their careers as performers, it was still the industrial wages that drew the mass of workers, and musicians usually held day jobs as well. Chicago was a primary focal point for migrants, especially from Mississippi but also from Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and other states. Migrations tended to follow the routes of railroads out of the South, and Chicago’s Central Station became the disembarkation point for Mississippians riding the Illinois Central. In fact, the site where the station stood is now memorialized by a Mississippi Blues Trail marker. Taking rail lines north took many Alabamians and Georgians to Detroit, Cleveland and other cities, while the southeastern states funneled new populations into New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. California and the West Coast became the new home
72
Blues Festival Guide 2018
of many from Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. The story of the blues would be unimaginably different had not Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Buddy Guy and many others headed north for Chicago, or T-Bone Walker, Charles Brown and Lowell Fulson west to California. Southern cities such as Memphis, New Orleans, Houston and Atlanta grew – as did their music scenes – and despite the mass exodus, many musicians stayed in the South or returned home after trying Northern life. In midAmerica, St. Louis, Kansas City and other cities became either waystops for musicians on the move or new homes for those who chose to settle. The leading figures on Chicago’s early blues scene arrived from numerous states. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom Dorsey (later to become renowned as the “Father of Gospel Music”) were natives of Georgia, Alberta Hunter came from Memphis, Big Bill Broonzy from Arkansas, Papa Charlie Jackson from New Orleans. As the city developed a blues recording industry and a growing audience for the music on the South Side, it became an important hub for touring artists such as the “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey, and one of the first blues queens, Ida Cox, both from Georgia, who recorded for the Paramount label. Paramount was based north of the city in Port Washington and Grafton, WI, but found a niche in the blues by employing a black Chicagoan, J. Mayo Williams, to find and record talent. In 1923, Ida Cox recorded “Chicago Bound Blues (Famous Migration Blues)” for Paramount. The song lyrics actually only dealt with Cox’s lover leaving her to go to Chicago, and not the migration in a broader sense; likely it was Williams (who took a co-writing credit) who came up with the parenthetical title to capitalize on a topic that was growing more important every day. Through Williams and a network of talent scouts, Southern bluesmen Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Papa Charlie Jackson and others recorded for Paramount in Chicago or Grafton.
Chicago’s black newspaper, The Defender, featured Paramount Records’ ad for Ida Cox’s “Chicago Bound Blues (Famous Migration Blues).” Image from The Chicago Defender, Nov. 10, 1923; ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Paramount folded during the Great Depression, but larger national record companies brought more talent into the Chicago studios in the 1930s and early ‘40s. Vocalion, Columbia, OKeh, Decca and Bluebird released records by blues artists who sometimes stayed several years or remained permanently to take advantage of opportunities as laborers and as performers in nightclubs, taverns, dance halls and theaters of the South Side, as well on the streets and at the Maxwell Street market. From Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Georgia came John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, Memphis Slim, St. Louis Jimmy, Washboard Sam, Roosevelt Sykes, Casey Bill Weldon, Robert Nighthawk, Lonnie Johnson, Doctor Clayton and Kokomo Arnold. From Mississippi came Willie Dixon, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Jazz Gillum, Johnnie Temple, Memphis Minnie, and Joe
and Charlie McCoy, sometimes by way of St. Louis, Memphis, Indianapolis or other cities. By 1930, Chicago had more Mississippi-born black residents (38,356 by census figures) than any other city in the country, and twice as many as Jackson, Mississippi’s largest city. St. Louis had a smaller population but an even higher percentage of Mississippians and was, at one point, America’s most important center for blues activity, making it an appropriate city to house the National Blues Museum. The steady stream of migration to Chicago and other cities of industry grew into a torrent during the 1940s and ‘50s fueled by political and technological changes. As the nation geared up for another war, factories, processing plants and steel mills needed new masses of workers, prompting the largest exodus from the South. Labor was still needed in the South to produce cotton, exempting Muddy Waters, B.B. King and certain other valued plantation residents from service, but new machinery began to replace the field hands. At the same time, as black soldiers returned home from war, the demand for equal rights and better pay grew. Leaving home was the obvious response for many. Between 1940 and 1950, an estimated 150,000 African Americans left Mississippi for Chicago. The new wave of migrants transformed the sound of Chicago blues, led by Muddy Waters and his band, and promoted by a new cadre of independent record labels like Chess and VeeJay. While blues was already established in the city, much of it had developed a smooth, urbane veneer, and many Chicago sophisticates looked askance at the downhome variety of blues. The recordings of the ‘30s and early ‘40s often evidenced this, and the live entertainment that Chicago’s black newspaper, The Defender, preferred to promote was either lighter fare or more jazz-oriented. The transplantation of raw, hard-edged blues from the Delta and other regions of the Deep South by Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Jimmy Rogers, Snooky Pryor, Junior Wells and others, in tune with the tastes of their migrant audiences, would transform the sound of Chicago blues forever.
Between 1910 and 1970, more than six million African Americans moved out the rural South to urban destinations in the northern and western states Image by Aqua Design
Blues Festival Guide 2018
73
Following the Depression, money flowed during the wartime economy and continued to provide opportunities for musicians and music entrepreneurs after the war, fed by ever-increasing waves of migrants that constituted a huge and concentrated market for blues. With jobs in the city, people had money to spend on records and nighttime entertainment. Blues was largely limited to weekend activity on the plantations, but in Chicago, clubgoers could enjoy blues by top names every night of the week, and with steadier club work, musicians could develop another level of professionalism. Chicago blues became even more electrified as a new wave of performers from the South, including Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Freddie King, came to the fore, and the city’s black population swelled. The blues had grown from its downhome roots in new directions and while the change from the older acoustic styles into modern electric blues is often linked to the migration, that development was really more a function of time and technology, since musicians in the South were amplifying their blues too. The migration saga was repeated to varying degrees with different casts in many other cities. California did not have much of an African American population until the shipyards and defense industries spurred mass migration from the South and Southwest. Los Angeles’ African American population grew from 7,600 in 1910 to 76,200 in 1940 and 10 times that figure in 1970. The city become an important recording center in the 1940s, and in the years to come, Aladdin, Modern, Black &
White, Specialty, Imperial and other West Coast labels spread the music of Charles Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, T-Bone Walker, Pee Wee Crayton, Amos Milburn and Lowell Fulson across the country, in addition to recording blues and R&B from the South by B.B. King, Fats Domino, Little Richard and many more. Detroit experienced one of the most drastic transformations. In 1910, the city was home to only 9,000 African Americans; by 1940 – thanks mostly to the automotive plants – that figure was 168,600; in 1970, it was 753,800; and today more than 80 percent of the city’s estimated 677,000 residents are African American. Though it would become most famous for the Motown sound, built by a mix of Southern-born and local musicians, the Motor City was home to one of the giants of the blues, John Lee Hooker from Mississippi, and many others from the Deep South. As late as 1976, the migration theme could produce hit blues records, as Albert King proved by recording the song “Cadillac Assembly Line,” written by fellow Mississippi native Mack Rice: Goin’ to Detroit, Michigan Girl, I can’t take you Hey, I’m goin’ to Detroit, Michigan Girl, you got to stay here behind Gonna get me a job On the Cadillac assembly line I’m tired of whoopin’ and hollerin’ Up and down the Mississippi road Hey, I’m tired of whoopin’ and hollerin’ Pickin’ that nasty cotton Gonna catch me a bus up North I won’t have to keep sayin’ yassir, boss Despite the potential opportunities and advantages that drew migrants to the cities, the North and West did not always turn out to be the Promised Land. Urban decay, crime, segregated and substandard housing, discrimination and poverty were facts of life in the cities. As a result, a trend of Reverse Migration had emerged by the 1970s, and with the social and political changes back home in the post-Civil Rights era, more and more African Americans moved south. While many blues songs have been written about going to Chicago and other cities, there may have been even more about going back home. Movement to one place or another has always been a major theme in the music. The blues has survived, whether in its Southern surroundings or transplanted urban bases, and has even taken root in new locales that never had a blues scene before. There will always be reasons to sing the blues. Jim O’Neal is a cofounding editor of Living Blues magazine, research director with the Mississippi Blues Trail and co-editor of the book The Voice of the Blues. He operates a mail order business (Stackhouse & BluEsoterica, 3516 Holmes St., Kansas City MO 64109, www.bluesoterica.com) buying and selling records, magazines and memorabilia.
74
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Blues Festival Guide 2018
75
A Toot to the Flute, Fife and Quills Othar "Otha" Turner manufacturing a fife out of a piece of bamboo cane. Photo: Othar Turner making fife image 10 in the William R. Ferris Collection #20367, Southern Folklife Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
By Regi Oliver The flute, fife and quills are all members of the woodwind family of instruments. The flute is one of the oldest and most widely used wind instruments. Originally made from mammoth tusk and animal bones, the oldest found flutes date as far back as 60,000 years, demonstrating that this musical tradition was developed early on in modern human existence. Flute tones are lyrical and sweet, and the flute’s pitch and flexible timbre allow for instantaneous expressive control – which is well suited to the blues. When I grew up, a band was not really considered a band unless it consisted of a minimum of four horns. Every saxophone player was expected to double on at least flute and clarinet, and vice versa. I heard the flute in various contexts. Big bands, orchestras, concert bands, rock and pop bands all utilized the flute sound at some point in their repertoire. If you really think about it, there’s not a genre of modern secular music that hasn’t employed the gorgeous and hypnotic sounds of the flute. The fife, one of the most important musical instruments in America’s Colonial period, can still be heard today in some Appalachian folk music. The fife is louder and more shrill than the flute due to its narrower bore. As early as the 17th century and prominently in the 18th and 19th centuries,
76
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Afro-American slaves learned fife and/or drum skills from playing in militia units. They adopted the tradition into their music of African origins, developing into the genre of black fife and drum blues, which has been documented in parts of Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia. One of the most famous artists of the fife and drum blues tradition was Othar “Otha” Turner, who played on homemade cane fifes during his goatroasting parties and other community events. First recordings of Mississippi fife and drum music were made in 1942 of multi-instrumentalist Sid Hemphill and his band. Other wellknown musicians of the fife and drum tradition include Ed and Lonnie Young, the Mitchel Brothers, Napolian Strickland, Hemphill’s granddaughter Jessie Mae Hemphill and Turner’s granddaughter Shardé Thomas who inherited leadership of his Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. The quills are a type of pan flute, an early American folk woodwind assumed to originate from Africa and played by Afro-American slaves in the south dating back to the late 1700s/early 1800s. One of the earliest recordings of the quills was in 1926 by Mississippi artist Big Boy Cleveland. A year later, Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas began recording 24 sides for Vocalion Records. These recordings are some of my favorite examples of quill playing and techniques.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
77
Kofi Burbridge of the Tedeschi Trucks Band Photo by © Marilyn Stringer
Thomas’ songs have since been revived by folk, rock and blues musicians. Among the first of these was “Honey Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance,” which was revamped by Bob Dylan in 1963 as “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance.” Others include “Don’t Ease Me In” covered by the Grateful Dead; “Fishing Blues,” recorded by The Lovin’ Spoonful in 1965, Taj Mahal in 1968 and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 2002; and “Bull Doze Blues,” which was reworked and recorded as “Up The Country” by Wingy Manone in 1927 and 1930 and became the basis for Canned Heat’s “Going Up The Country” in 1968. Perhaps the greatest current exponent of the quills tradition is the young multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons, founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who was taught quills by another creative artist, Mike Seeger. Both musicians are well documented and have kept the acoustic traditions alive for the next generation of wind players and blues men alike. I started my musical journey with the saxophone at the age of 12 and started playing flute two years later. My world was forever changed after my older brother, Frank Jr., brought home a friend from college to give me some brief tutoring and insights on being a professional musician. Ari Jackson was a classically trained flutist from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who was studying at Southern University with Alvin Batiste. Ari stood in our dining room and played some of the most technically flawless, beautiful and expressive flute I’ve ever heard. I can still remember the resonance reverberating the room, walls and floor. The sound was haunting and magically revealing. I heard his soul, breath and life-force pouring out through that flute, and he was right there in front of me, up close and personal. Two years later, another brother, Charles, took me to a theatrical performance at the high school and introduced me to Vince Williams, whose solo performances on alto sax and flute stole the show. Once again, I was transformed by
78
Blues Festival Guide 2018
the sheer expressiveness and tonal purity of the flute. I was sold on the music and the art of improvisation and have been serious about the flute and woodwinds ever since. It’s only fair to mention a few of the influential flute masters who have contributed so much to furthering the blues, rock ‘n roll and jazz. Yusef Lateef, Nathan Davis, James Moody, James Newton, Roland Kirk, David “Fathead” Newman, Frank Wess, Moe Koffman, Bobbi Humphrey, Jeremy Steig, Jean Pierre Rampal and Hubert Laws all played modern blues on modern flutes in a jazz style. Kofi Burbridge, of the Derek Trucks Band and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, is perhaps the brightest and best prominent flutist associated with the blues today. His fluency, proficiency and overall mastery of the flute certainly distinguish him from the other active flutists I’ve seen. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues have also made huge strides with the flute, and we can’t fail to mention Gheorghe Zamfir. His pan flute stylings have helped to restore the sound of quills back into the consciousness of listeners all over the world. By nature, flutes, fifes and quills require the player to surrender, focus and breathe life into them. What you put in is what you get out, nothing more and certainly nothing less. The sound of side-blown aerophones has been around for tens of thousands of years and will continue to enhance our sonic palettes in the future. Regi Oliver graduated on a full scholarship from the Berklee College of Music in 1987, with a major in Professional Music. He then joined the faculty at Stanford University’s Jazz Workshop for the next 13 years. Regi re-settled in Florida in 1998 and has since toured and performed throughout the world, working with a long list of renowned artists. Connect with Regi on Facebook.com/Regi.Oliver and to view some of the great flutists in blues mentioned here, visit his flute blues playlist on www.youtube.com/user/regioliverro
Author Regi Oliver
Blues Festival Guide 2018
79
The Love Boat Honeymoonon onthe the AAHoneymoon LegendaryRhythm Rhythmand andBlues BluesCruise Cruise Legendary Holland America’s ms Koningsdam, a.k.a. the LRBC Love Boat . Photo by © Joseph A. Rosen
Anyone who’s ever planned a wedding knows how many decisions must be made. For my husband Ryan and I, choosing the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise (LRBC) for our honeymoon was a no-brainer. We couldn’t wait! The 30th LRBC sailing seven days to the Eastern Caribbean, with ports in Fort Lauderdale, Grand Turk, Puerto Rico and Tortola, and featuring renowned blues musicians, was the perfect encore to our union. A few of the artists featured on the 30th LRBC included Buddy Guy, the Taj Mahal Trio, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Deanna Bogart, the Tommy Castro Band, Shemekia Copeland, Magic Dick, Tab Benoit, Charlie Musselwhite and so many more! Each artist played at least three times during the seven days, at venues including the main stage on deck, an indoor theater stage with stadium seating, an intimate hidden piano bar and others. I can’t think of another place where so many talented artists can get together and collaborate. Whether you’re a passionate blues fan who wants to rock out from dawn until well past dusk or prefer to enjoy a romantic sunset with your honey while music floats by on the ocean breeze, the LRBC offers it all. To kick off a great honeymoon, we attended the cruise’s ritual “Virgin Party” where we all got lei’d! On board, we were pleased to find that other couples were also celebrating
their honeymoons. From a couple in their 30s ecstatic to be among blues legends, to musician Ronnie Baker Brooks and his new wife Cassandra, to a couple all the way from Germany, to LRBC CEO/Managing Partner Roger Naber and his wife Keven (this was, at least, their first cruise as a married couple), love was in the air. As our ship, Holland America’s ms Koningsdam, sailed to the Eastern Caribbean, we got settled in our state room. With the smooth sheets of the king-sized bed, the ocean view from our porthole window, the television playing live feeds of the on-board stages and the excellent daily room service, we certainly felt pampered. Upon dinner time, we also felt indulged. The cruise offers all-inclusive food, fine dining, room service and more. You can get dressed to the nines every evening and enjoy a romantic five-course dinner for two or stay in your cabin and order room service while you snuggle up and watch your favorite movie. You can always stay in, but the ship’s night life has a lot to offer for a couple in love, whether it’s a themed costume party (held nightly), dancing away to some killer blues or sitting close in a dark corner of the piano bar. The first port of the cruise was the island of Grand Turk, where we went on a snorkeling excursion full of fellow cruisers. Sailing the warm sea on a catamaran and snorkeling on Grand Turk’s longest reef, which drops down 7,000 feet, was
Taj Mahal toasts the recent union of LRBC Managing Partner Roger Naber and his new wife Keven. Photo by © Joseph A. Rosen
In one of the many venues on board, cruisers can cozy up to the piano bar. Photo by © Joseph A. Rosen
By Claire Henderson
80
Blues Festival Guide 2018
stunning. Ryan had never snorkeled before and it was indeed an incredible experience to share together. After snorkeling, the crew took us to a crystal clear, white sand beach where the rum and punch starting flowing. Swimming, drinking and dance parties continued throughout the day until we returned to the ship for some more fun. Our second port was San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since the hurricanes hit many of the islands in Fall 2017, I was interested to learn that these ports were open and ready for tourists. We walked around Old San Juan on the blue cobblestone streets, tried mofongo (the country’s signature dish of fried plantains mashed with garlic) for lunch and took in the colorful city, hand in hand. At the end of the day, we attended a benefit concert hosted by the LRBC and Puerto Rico’s Tourism Company. This free concert for both LRBC cruisers and the people of Puerto Rico helped raise funds for the local non-profit Second Harvest Food Bank, which delivered supplies to many citizens in need after the hurricane. The concert was a mix of LRBC artists and San Juan’s premier salsa and jazz musicians, starring Puerto Rican Jerry Medina Salsa Septet, Commander Cody, Tab Benoit and Taj Mahal. Just think – the sun setting on the ocean, a drink in your hand and Taj Mahal singing “Corrina” in the beautiful city of San Juan – it can hardly get more romantic. Just the memory of it still makes me swoon. Our third port was Road Town, Tortola, the largest British Virgin Island. This island was severely hit by Hurricane Irma. As we docked, we saw the white sand beaches and exuberant mountains, but once we got off the boat, the destruction of the hurricane was evident everywhere. Our local tour guide told us the island’s history, but also gave us insight on how the locals are rebuilding their lives. It was a humbling experience to see
Magic Dick (l) and Ronnie Baker Brooks (r) tearing it up on the LRBC outdoor stage. Photo by Claire Henderson
Taking in the view at one cruise port in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo by Claire Henderson
a community uniting together through this time. Many island economies highly depend on tourism, and we felt so blessed to be able to visit Tortola and support them in the short time we were there. If you’re thinking about visiting a place that was affected by a hurricane, now is a great time to go and lend your support! Cruising back to our last port in Fort Lauderdale, FL, we thought about visiting the on-board spa, hitting the gym with its grand view of the ocean and whales spouting nearby, trying our lover’s luck at the casino or sunbathing on the upper deck – all is possible on the LRBC – but instead we opted to take in a few last acts. We wanted to catch a little of every performance, so we stopped in on Tommy Castro and the Painkillers on the back of the boat, Charlie Musselwhite on the World Stage with his briefcase full of harmonicas, Southern Hospitality with Victor Wainwright jamming on the piano (as he announced the engagement of his friends on board!) and ended the night dancing under the stars to Trampled Under Foot. In Fort Lauderdale, most cruisers said their good-byes, hopped off the boat and headed home. We stayed in the city to enjoy one last day of our honeymoon, catching up on sleep and soaking in a little more sun before returning to the coldwet winter in Northern California. We couldn’t have asked for a better honeymoon full of music, dancing, exploration and above all, creating these memories together on the LRBC. By day, Claire Henderson works in a physical therapy office. By early mornings/ evenings/weekends, she is a photographer and doula. She lives in Northern California with her husband Ryan and their dog Akira.
Ryan and Claire Henderson honeymooning on board the LRBC
Blues Festival Guide 2018
81
Producing Music: Capturing the Essence of a Sound The guitar work of Tommy Castro. Photo by Claire Henderson
Michele Lundeen, Blues Festival eGuide Editor and known musically as the “Queen of Steam,” has glimpsed into the world of producing music:
Michele Lundeen, “The Queen of Steam.” Photo by Jeff Beeler
82
Blues Festival Guide 2018
My life’s passion – my heart and soul – has been singing. When I felt it was finally time to do an album, I needed help with the recording process and flushing out some of my arrangements. I reached out to musician and producer Johnny V Vernazza, an award-winning guitarist (Elvin Bishop, Norton Buffalo) that I respected. I couldn’t have made a better decision. As my producer, Johnny V connected me with some really fabulous, professional musicians I may have never met, as well as a seasoned engineer and studio he’d already vetted. In the studio, he helped me communicate with the musicians to streamline some of the arrangements and direct parts for them during recording. He also worked closely with the engineer to get the best sound for what I was looking for. I was concerned about my limited budget and possibly giving up too much of my artistic control. However, having an experienced producer to guide me during the process really paid off. A guiding hand in the studio, and the bonus: my album Song Inside Me was born. For more, see michelelundeen.com. In this article, we take a closer look at what a music producer does – the skills needed, the details of the job, how they view the producing process – and maybe even the secret to making a hit.
John Shipley A producer manages all the details of making a recording – from advising on song arrangements, to booking the studio, to budgeting project costs, to assembling engineering staff and studio musicians, to supervising the recording and mixing process – as well as providing the guidance and support to bring out an artist’s best talent and sound. A message for artists: don’t waste your time and your money by NOT hiring a producer! Booking time in a professional recording studio can be an expensive proposition, and if you don’t know what you are doing, you can easily spend a lot of money. Many musicians think all they need to get their material recorded is their band, their material and the in-house recording engineer. This can work but remember one thing: the in-house engineer works for the studio and is usually on an hourly salary – he wants you to spend as much time as possible recording your project. A good producer can budget your time while you concentrate on your project. He (or she) will also negotiate the best deal for your budget, with the studio of your liking. Your producer will know which microphone will make you sound the best, which outboard processing will enhance the sound of your tracks and how to get the mix to best display your talents. Music producers help an artist take their music through the entire recording process, refining and defining their sound. They have the ability and the ears to get a great sound onto tape and then guide the artist through the mastering and replication stages of getting music onto CD. A producer knows what a hit sounds like and how to create that sound. John Shipley is a producer, pianist, conductor, arranger, songwriter and recording artist. He is also the president of the Reno Musicians Union and has toured with artists such as the Funk Brothers. Learn more at www.shipleymusic.com
John Shipley, owner of Washoe Zephyr Music. Photo by Makena Lee Photography
Jim Pugh, hard at work hard at work for the Little Village Foundation at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios. Photo by Robby Yamilov
Jim Pugh Growing up outside Chicago, my childhood friend, Peter Dammann, had a sister who was a freshman at the University of Chicago. Somebody nicked her Chicago Blues Today records, and after school we’d play them over and over again. It was 1966 and I was 12 years old. I scoured the album cover and noticed that Samuel Charters produced all three volumes. I had no idea what a producer did then. In a way, I have no more of an idea now, but here’s my two cents. In recording, it seems there are five major areas of involvement: singer, songwriter, musician, engineer and producer. There are some, like Raphael Saadiq, who are so gifted that they can do all five at the same time. I love to sing but I’m no Etta James, so I’m mainly concerned with the other four areas. I have been a songwriter, musician, engineer and producer all at the same time on a session. I don’t recommend it. It’s important to separate yourself from the different functions. If I’ve written the song, I have to forget about that when I’m playing it; I want it to be just another piece of music that I’m playing. So too with producing. If I wrote the song, I have to separate myself from being the player and also in evaluating the song and its performance. For me, recording has to be fun. Sure, it can be serious, but it shouldn’t be tedious. Doing too many of these components at once can be tedious, so get someone to help you. An artist should focus on what they do best, and ideally a producer can help with those other components. Recording music involves teamwork where everyone fulfills a needed function in order to get the maximum performance with the desired sound and ambience. As an organ player, I’ve had a chance to play on recordings produced by guys I really admire. I’ve come
Blues Festival Guide 2018
83
to realize over the years that I’ve often copied the style of the producer I’ve worked with most recently. There was a Barry Beckett period, followed by a Steve Jordon period, followed by a more recent Raphael Saadiq period. These days I really admire Kid Andersen’s producing style: easygoing but focused. He reminds me of going to one of those dentists who’s done before they’ve even started. When I’ve been asked to produce, these are the guys who have greatly influenced me. A good producer can encourage fearlessness and help channel an artist into a moment of true creative expression. The ability to create this effortless environment is what makes these great producers worth the fees they charge. But those guys can be very expensive and harder still to find. The rest of us are just mutts with a passion for great music and a vague idea of how to create it. Jim Pugh’s international performing music career spans 40 years, recording and performing with a star-studded array of musicians, and includes multiple Grammy Award nominations (one win), and platinum and gold records. In 2014 Pugh started Little Village Foundation which searches out, records and produces music that otherwise might not be heard beyond the artist’s community. Its aim is to share diverse music while supporting musicians in today’s competitive record industry. For more information, visit littlevillagefoundation.com.
Guitarist, singer and songwriter Albert Cummings. Photo by Jennifer Mardus Photography
Albert Cummings
84
Blues Festival Guide 2018
For me, the best thing I can do concerning my music is to step aside and try to listen to it from another person’s perspective. When I first started out, I thought I could do this myself. I would try my hardest to listen with a different set of ears, but it is an almost impossible task. At least in my case, my ability to step aside seemed like I was doing a good job… that is, until I worked with my first producers. My first real album was produced by Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon (from Double Trouble). They taught me things I didn’t know existed. I remember realizing I had a lot to learn when it came to production. There are many producers out there and each has their own set of characteristics. How do you select one? It’s easier than you think. Start listening closely to the music that is similar to yours or that you like to listen to. This is a basic starting point. Once you hear an album or song you think sounds good, just read the liner notes and take notice of who produced it. You may see a name start popping up on multiple albums you like. After I did my first album, I had a whole new appreciation of how important the producer is for the project. The studio is full of very technical equipment, software and gear. The right producer knows about all these things. They can listen to your songs and usually tell you in an instant what will make them better. Sounds simple, but it isn’t. Usually they have years of experience dealing with all these factors and know how to give you the most bang for your buck. A good producer takes over in the studio and gets a sense of what you want to accomplish. They work their tail off to ensure you are giving your all when you’re in the studio. The studio can be both a very stressful place and an extremely fun place. In other words, it has many highs and lows. A producer will tend to stay very calm and help you through these times. I’ve seen producers listen to the song and do something simple like change the drummer’s beat, and suddenly you are on a completely new course. After recording the songs, your producer will then move on to fixes, overdubs, additional pieces, vocals, etc., and then on to the mastering phase. There is a lot to it! Don’t try to be a-do-it-yourselfer when it comes to this job. An album that doesn’t sound good won’t sell well. You will be very happy you invested more into your project when you listen to your finished product! As a guitarist, singer and songwriter, Albert Cummings stays true to his true musical roots, displaying the impact that R&B, rock, soul, country and the blues have had on his craft. On stage, he effortlessly shifts from subdued stylings, to raucous roadhouse raunch to soaring lead lines that drive his audience to an all-out frenzy. Check him out at albertcummings.com
Blues Festival Guide 2018
85
BLUES RADIO Support your local blues station by tuning in and enjoying some bluesy tunes
HERE IS A LIST OF some of OUR FAVORITE BLUES RADIO SHOWS Artists: Send in your latest releases for airplay. Promoters: Send in your event info so the Djs can help get the word out. Fans: Tune in and enjoy! HAWAII
INTERNET/SATELLITE Blues with Russell Thurs. 7pm – 9pm DJ Russell Luzio 995 Eureka Dunes Ave. Henderson, NV 89012 909/967-1330 (office) blueswithrussell@aol.com www.blueswithrussell.com YouTube/blueswithrussell The Eclectic Chair Streaming: www.radiochair.com Available On Demand DJ Trish Lewis PO Box 25 Bay City, MI 48707-0025 810/241-0310 (office, on air) radiochair@gmail.com www.radiochair.com
CALIFORNIA NEVADA CITY KVMR 89.5 FM Streaming: www.kvmr.org Sun. 1pm – 3pm “Blues Spectrum” DJ Steve Cagle and DJ Keith Andre ATTN: Sean Dooley, Music Director 120 Bridge St. Nevada City, CA 95959 530/265-9073 (office) 530/265-9555 (on air) music@kvmr.org www.kvmr.org
FLORIDA ORLANDO WUCF 89.9 FM Streaming Live: http://wucf.ucf.edu Sat. 8pm – Midnight “Smokestack Lightnin'" DJs Tommy, Paul, Rob, Marv R 200 Shell Point West Maitland, FL 32751 407/644-0522 (office) nthompsonjr@cfl.rr.com www.smokestacklightnin.com
HONOLULU KTUH 90.1 FM Streaming: www.ktuh.org Thurs. 9am – Noon “Somethin’ Blue” DJ Steve Stoddard 2345 Ala Wai Blvd. #814 Honolulu, HI 96815 808/926-1783 (office) 808/956-7261 (on air) 808/926-1783 (fax) stoddardsl@yahoo.com www.stoddardshale.com
ILLINOIS EVANSTON & CHICAGO WNUR 89.3 FM Streaming: www.wnur.org Sun. 3pm – 5pm “The Blues Show” DJs Lynn Orman Weiss, Liz Mandeville, Terry Abrahamson, Steve Temkin 1877 Campus Dr. Evanston, IL 60208 847/866-WNUR (office, on air) ormanmusic@gmail.com www.wnur.org Facebook/WNURBluesShow SPRINGFIELD WQNA 88.3 FM Mon. 4pm – 7pm “WQNA's Blues Power!” DJ Michael G. 2905 Rainier Drive, 04 Springfield, IL 62704 217/971-9104 (office) mrg2455@gmail.com
MISSISSIPPI CLARKSDALE WROX 97.5 FM & 1450 AM Streaming: www.wroxradio.com Sat. 7pm – 9pm “Crossroads Delta Blues Show” DJ Paul Wilson 628 DeSoto Avenue Clarksdale, MS 38614 662/627-1450 (office) 662/627-3000 (on air) www.wroxradio.com
2018 BFG Sponsor
86
Blues Festival Guide 2018
MISSOURI COLUMBIA KOPN 89.5 FM Streaming: www.kopn.org Sat. 8pm – 11pm “Blues on Broadway” DJ Chris Puyear 5201 E. Woodson Harris Rd. Columbia, MO 65201 573/874-1139 (office) 573/874-5676 (on air) request@liveblues.org www.kopn.org
TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE WDVX 89.9 FM / 102.9 FM Streaming: www.wdvx.com Fri. 9pm – 3am “Johnny Mack's Friday Night Blues Attack” DJ Johnny Mack 301 S. Gay St. Knoxville, TN 37902 865/544-1029 (office) 865/494-2020 (on air) bluemack@charter.net www.wdvx.com
TEXAS HOUSTON KPFT 90.1 FM Streaming: www.kpft.org Sun. 2pm – 5pm “Howlin’ the Blues” DJ The Blues Hound & DJ Baby Girl 2719 22nd Ave. North Texas City, TX 77590 409/948-8663 (office) 713/526-5738 (on air) theblueshound@comcast.net www.kpft.org / www.theblueshound.com
WASHINGTON OLYMPIA KAOS 89.3 FM Streaming: www.kaosradio.org Tues. 6pm – 8pm “Tuesday Blues” DJ Ruby Ru &Friends Evergreen State College – CAB 101 2700 Evergreen Pkwy. NW Olympia, WA 98505 360/867-6897 (office) 360/867-5267 (on air) 360/867-6697 (fax) brownstr@evergreen.edu www.kaosradio.org
My Brother Gave Me The Blues How’d you get turned onto the blues? We asked Blues Festival Guide’s 200,000+ Facebook followers and discovered that, for many, it was all due to their brothers! Enjoy these memories! With an illegal smile, I climb a steep flight of stairs in the South End into a smoky, dark pew-strewn auditorium. Big Mama Thornton is on the stage stompin’ and wailin’ in front of a sparse, spaced, appreciative crowd. I wander and wonder. Paradise found. My blues are born. I was 17, my older brother, 19, had told me about the place. It was the original Boston Tea Party club on Berkeley Street. Albert King was the headliner on the bill. Cliff Hankin, Boston, MA I was 19. My older brother guitar player no-showed one night, and all I could do was wing my way through “Down by the River” and “Spooky Little Girl like You.” Then it hit me, “bluesy,” yea man! Scott Balser, Wichita Falls, TX Two of my older brothers... one moved out of the family home leaving Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Winters albums when I was 11, I wore them out. Another brother had Cream’s Disraeli Gears and Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West albums. I listened to them constantly when I was 13. I’d say I was well schooled! Linda Beck, Albuquerque, NM I remember my big brother, Jefferson Davis Teague, handing me a copy of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Soul to Soul on cassette and saying, “This guy is it.” Circa ‘86. Jeremy Teague, Selmer, TN When I was 11, my older sister made the mistake of leaving her 12-string Epiphone unattended. That’s how it all began. Debi Jordan, Carrabelle, FL I was raised in Los Angeles by Tennesseans who were both accomplished musicians. My older brother Dr. (John) Duck turned me onto Paul Butterfield in 1965 and as a 14-year-old guitarist, I was floored and immediately became a Michael Bloomfield fan. John gave me John Mayall’s Beano album for Christmas 1966 and I was spun bigtime. I am now 66 and have been a lifelong blues guitarist and am in my seventh year with Black Cat Mojo, a working blues band. James Duck, Los Angeles, CA
My brother took me to my first concert... the Allman Brothers Band. Been in love with the blues ever since. Kelly Gum, Peachtree Corners, GA I found an album in my brother’s collection just after I stole and smoked some of his weed when I was 12. It was called Couldn’t Stand the Weather and I’ve been playing guitar ever since. Gene Clarke, Kempsey, New South Wales My 5 years-older-than-me brother had a John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers album, the one with Eric Clapton. We wore the cardboard off of that one. Jackie Ringersma, Johnson City, TN It was brothers of a different sort – a small group of guys when I was in the Army in the early 90s, my brothers in arms. Those guys turned me on to Stevie Ray Vaughan. That was the spark. From there I wanted more. Of course, you eventually figure out that the history of blues is long and vast. I heard the music SRV did with Albert King! And B.B... first picked up on him when he played with U2. Then I had to have more. Then of course there’s Clapton and his reverence for Buddy Guy and Freddie King. All started by that spark shared by my brothers. Allen Woodrum, Grass Lake, MI My brother was a radio DJ who brought blues albums home when I was a kid; Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters among them. Been hooked since. Dwayne L. Davidson, Louisville, KY My older brother, may he rest in peace, with one of my harmonicas! Thanks bro! Farrell TyeMan Levitt, Adairsville, GA My brother left a tape of Chicago Blues at my house in 1980. I played it the next day and it just hit me! Been hooked ever since. It was hard to part with, but I found the series on vinyl – which I still have. Also have it on CD and now digital. That tape led me to so many other blues artists, I’ve seen some of the biggest over the years and loved them all. Rosetta Stone, New Zealand. Note from the editor: Tune in to Facebook.com/BluesFestivalGuide for engaging blues news! Artwork by Matt O’Brien
Blues Festival Guide 2018
87
Shopping for Talent Photo by © Marilyn Stringer
By Stacy Jeffress The next time you’re toe tapping at your favorite blues festival, relaxing in your lawn chair, well supplied with your preferred adult beverage and the scent of bug spray in the air, you might wonder how the artists in the line-up got there. Who decided the mix of the internationally acclaimed musicians with the up-andcomers? Where did the promoters find that band you’d never heard before but now need to tell your friends about? To produce a great festival and create ticket demand, promoters are driven to stay abreast of who’s hot on the blues music scene, educate the audience about the wide spectrum of music that constitutes today’s blues genre and create a memorable experience for the fans. These blues aficionados travel to other festivals, keep booking agents on speed dial, attend the International Blues Challenge (IBC), check out local clubs, listen to artist materials and keep up on blues media that pushes music and musicians out to the world. Brian Slack, who produces multiple festivals in Canada including the ten-day Tremblant International Blues Fest, makes sure to pop in a few eye-openers for the audience, along with a healthy array of international touring artists. “A festival to me is an experience,” he explained. “The more surprises you have, the more you make people discover your festival. I try to discover people before we can’t afford them.” Slack described the reaction when he booked The Boogie Boys from Poland, a trio including two acrobatically-inclined piano players who inspired a feeling of “Liberace storms Memphis” at the 2009 IBC finals. “They’re coming from Poland and they’re kind of a vaudevilletype act, so I had some people scratching their heads,” he said. “On the second day, the outdoor show was rained out, but I had to find an indoor venue for them because of audience demand.” Sometimes the deep friendships that develop between blues artists and those on the production side of the business drive decisions. When Joe Whitmer and Sara Negri-Whitmer prepared to book the talent for their inaugural Forgotten Music Festival this year, they looked to their friends first. They signed up John Nemeth and JP Soars right off the bat. “John and JP are more than work associates, they are friends indeed,” Joe
88
Blues Festival Guide 2018
explained. “If we were going to do this, they were going to be the first.” With Joe’s day job as chief operating officer of the Blues Foundation and Sara’s frequent volunteering for Foundation events, the couple sits in the crow’s nest for keeping tabs on who’s hot and who’s about to be. Joe knew from YouTube videos that he wanted to book Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal, and after seeing the group perform at a showcase during this year’s IBC, Sara immediately agreed. When Lauren Mitchell’s latest CD arrived at the Foundation through the Blues Music Award submission process, it caught Joe’s ear, and the Whitmers signed her up as well. For promoters, the focus is always on striking the right balance between traditional blues and contemporary artists, between the established icons and the artists who are ready to break out. For each of the ten years that the Topeka Blues Society has presented the Spirit of Kansas festival, talent buyer Suki Willison has offered something for everybody when she books the talent. “The Topeka Blues Society wants to continue to educate people about all the different sounds that people might get interested in and become a fan of,” she said. Since Willison is also the manager and talent buyer for the local blues venue, Uncle Bo’s Blues Bar, she has the advantage of receiving offers and promotional material from artists and booking agents all year long. She attends the IBC and visits other festivals each year to stay on top of the scene. “We’re a little town,” Willison said, “but it doesn’t mean we don’t get out there in the world and know what’s going on.” Filling out a complete roster of talent never seems to be an issue as promoters are bombarded with unsolicited requests to be booked for festivals. Michael Kinsman, talent buyer for the one-day San Diego Blues Festival, receives 400 submissions each year, but he only has eight slots available, with two of those reserved for local bands. Kinsman estimates that of the 400 acts he hears from, only about 20 are worth considering. “I can’t pay people who have no marketability,” he said. “Talent matters.” He also has to consider the mix of artists so he doesn’t present four guitar slingers in a row. “I want horns; I want keyboards,” he explained. Kinsman maintains a list of 80 to 100 bands he would like to have at his festival, but he will never get to all of
them – the price may be too steep, they may not be available or they may not fit the balance he’s working to achieve in the line-up. Paul Benjamin produces several festivals each year but may be most closely associated with the North Atlantic Blues Fest in his home state of Maine each July. Even though Maine is way up in the country’s northeast corner, he never has a problem recruiting artists to venture that far. He said that the way he looks at it, “It’s Maine, it’s July, it’s on the ocean, it’s great blues and we serve lobster.” He told us, because of the volume of artist material he receives, he could book the next five years for the Maine festival within a week. “Booking is fairly easy to a point,” Benjamin said, “but it’s picking who you want to play that is the challenge. I do my homework, bring in strong artists and stay in the blues realm.” Along with the challenges facing blues festival promoters come many special moments. From his 25 years of producing the festival in Maine, Benjamin easily recalled his favorite memory; during what would become “Little” Milton Campbell’s last live performance in 2005 during Hurricane Cindy. “It was just pouring rain all day; the show went on with 6,000 people in yellow raincoats,” Benjamin recalled. “Milton came on stage and thanked the audience for enduring the storm. For a split second, it stopped raining, the clouds parted, and the sun shone down on Little Milton on the stage. He said, ‘Look, Paul, we played out the sun!’ A second later, it started pouring again.” Little Milton suffered a stroke and passed away a month later. Slack also shared his favorite festival memory, involving the beloved Pinetop Perkins. “It was a special occasion because it was his 95th birthday. I was pretty nervous just hoping nothing would happen; that he wouldn’t get sick. I was so happy when the day finally came. My wife baked a cake in the shape of a piano, and Pinetop showed up dressed in a beautiful suit smoking a cigarette. We gave him the cake on stage, and he was around for another three years.” Slack told us there are a lot of rewards after working so hard, after all of the paperwork, all of the scheduling and managing everything that could go wrong. “It’s nice when you can sit back, chill with the artists and have a good conversation.” The blues festival promoters we caught up with are just a few of the hundreds who strive to present and preserve the blues for die-hard followers as well as newly-converted fans of the genre. They each demonstrate an obvious commitment to searching out artists deserving of more exposure as well as recruiting the brightest stars in order to create the line-ups we love. The devotion of their energy, skills and taste makes them unsung heroes for keeping the blues alive. Stacy began her freelance writing career in 2006 with the Kansas City Blues Society membership magazine. She gained a writing mentor in 2008 as a result of accosting KBA recipient Don Wilcock in a Memphis elevator during her first IBC, and now has over 90 published articles. Contact her at luvmyblues@yahoo.com.
Blues Festival Guide 2018
89
Blues Societies… Join One! ARKANSAS
FLORIDA
KENTUCKY
Sonny Boy Blues Society P.O. Box 118/349 Phillips St. Helena, AR 72342 USA 870-572-5223 Kingbiscuitfestival.com operations@kingbiscuitfestival.com
North Central Florida Blues Society P.O. Box 13282 Gainsville, FL 32604 USA 352-871-0676 president@ncfblues.org
Kentuckiana Blues Society P.O. Box 755 Louisville, KY 40201-0755 USA 502-593-7824 kbsblues.org prez@kbsblues.org
CALIFORNIA Blues Lovers United of San Diego P.O. Box 34077 San Diego, CA 92163 USA 619-630-9416 blusd.org Janine Harty, president@blusd.org Golden Gate Blues Society P.O. Box 2591 Redwood City, CA 94064 USA Tggbs.org, president@tggbs.org Kern River Blues Society Kern County, CA 93305 USA 661-872-7517 Facebook/Kern River Blues Society kernriverbluessociety@gmail.com Orange County Blues Society 18952 E. Appletree Ln. Orange, CA 92869 USA 714-328-9375 OrangeCountyBluesSociety.com rick@orangecountybluessociety.com Santa Barbara Blues Society P.O. Box 30853 Santa Barbara, CA 93130-0853 805-722-8155 www.SBBlues.org info@sbblues.org West Coast Blues Society P.O. Box 6103 Vallejo, CA 94591 USA 707-647-3962 www.westcoastbluessociety.org Facebook/West Coast Blues Society Executive Director: Ronnie Stewart COLORADO Colorado Blues Society P.O. Box 386 Windsor, CO 80550 www.coblues.org info@coblues.org CONNECTICUT Connecticut Blues Society P.O. Box 578 Enfield, CT 06083-0578 USA 860-741-3960 ctblues.org Ed Stack, jakecat39@gmail.com DELAWARE Central Delaware Blues Society P.O. Box 155 Magnolia, DE. 19962 USA 302-242-9997 centraldelawareblues.com BWPugh@comcast.net
90
South Florida Blues Society P.O. Box 772548 Coral Springs, FL 33077-2548 USA 954-461-6673 Soflablues.org bluesbobby2@aol.com Suncoast Blues Society P.O. Box 4232 Tampa, FL 33677 USA 414-416-1884 Suncoastblues.org mark@suncoastblues.org ILLINOIS Crossroads Blues Society P.O. Box 840 Byron, IL 61010 USA 779-537-4006 crossroadsbluessociety.com Steve Jones, sub_insignia@yahoo.com Decatur Blues Society P.O. Box 386 Decatur, IL 62522 USA 217-855-4262 www.decaturblues.org decaturbluessociety@yahoo.com Illinois Central Blues Club P.O. Box 603 Springfield, IL 62705 USA 217-899-9422 icbluesclub.org mikerapier@sbcglobal.net INDIANA River Basin Blues Society P.O. Box 15125 Evansville, IN 47716-0125 USA 812-484-5947 evansvilleblues.com evansvilleblues.com/contact-us South Central Indiana Blues Society P.O. Box 2059 Nashville, IN 47448 USA 317-374-0342 www.sciblues.org nancygaylord@sciblues.org IOWA Southeast Iowa Blues Society P.O. Box 1718 Fairfield, IA 52556 USA 641-233-7438 southeastiowabluessociety.org Steve Arndt, sibs2010@yahoo.com KANSAS Topeka Blues Society P.O. Box 4963 Topeka, KS 66604 USA www.topekabluessociety.org info@topekabluessociety.org
Blues Festival Guide 2018
MINNESOTA Minnesota Blues Society P.O. Box 580704 Minneapolis, MN 55458 USA 651-355-2612 www.MnBS.org info@MnBS.org MISSISSIPPI Vicksburg Blues Society 2613 Confederate Ave. Vicksburg, MS 39180 USA 601-634-6179 shirleywaring@bellsouth.net MISSOURI Blues Society of the Ozarks P.O. Box 8133 Springfield, MO 65801 USA www.ozarksblues.org jchamberlain@haymanengineering.com MO Blues Association Inc. P.O. Box 105758 Jefferson, MO 65110 USA www.moblues.org webmaster@moblues.org NEBRASKA Blues Society of Omaha P.O. Box 241698 Omaha, NE 68124 www.omahablues.com hebegb50@gmail.com NEW HAMPSHIRE Granite State Blues Society 1 Hardy Road, PMB 202 Bedford, NH 03110 USA 603-345-9809 www.granitestateblues.org info@granitestateblues.org NEW JERSEY North Jersey Blues Alliance 4 South Orange Ave. #224 South Orange, NJ 07079 USA 973-865-5551 southmountainbluesfestival.com Aron Lifschultz, aronl99@comcast.net NORTH DAKOTA Muddy River Blues Society 512 North 24th St. Bismarck, ND 58501 USA 701-426-2872 Facebook/MRBSND Donna Hipfner, bdbh@bis.midco.net OHIO Northeast Ohio Blues Association (NEOBA) 12315 Springwater Ave. Uniontown, OH 44685 USA 330-877-3913
Compiled by Heather Penrod-Rudd
bluesNEOBA.org Andy@bluesNEOBA.org PENNSYLVANIA Blues Society of Central PA P.O. Box 453 Steelton, PA 17113 USA 717-649-7711 bscpblues.org bluesmembership@gmail.com Blues Society of Western PA 79 Linmar Homes Aliquippa, PA 15001 USA 724-888-6183 Bswpa.org Jonnye Weber, 2golfers2@comcast.net TENNESSEE Knoxville Blues Society P.O. Box 6856 Maryville, TN 37802 USA 865-455-6373 www.blues.ambientlife.com blues@ambientlife.com Memphis Blues Society 1910 Madison Ave. #627 Memphis, TN 38104 USA 901-304-0140 www.memphisbluessociety.com President@memphisbluessociety.com Smoky Mountain Blues Society P.O. Box 7180 Maryville, TN 37802 USA 865-288-0672 www.smokymountainblues.org smokymountainbluessociety@gmail.com West Tennessee Blues Society P.O. Box 1454 Brownsville, TN 38012 USA 731-780-5144 Facebook/WTBluesSociety westtnblues@gmail.com WASHINGTON South Sound Blues Association P.O. Box 64605 Tacoma, WA 98464 USA 253-230-6851 www.southsoundblues.com gwgrape47@comcast.net CANADA Calgary Blues Music Association #188 A6433 Bowness Rd. NW Calgary, AB T3B 0K5 CANADA 403-472-7064 calgarybluesfest.com nfo@calgarybluesfest.com Ottawa Blues Society P.O. Box 8124 Station T, Ottawa, ON K1G 3H6 CANADA www.ottawabluessociety.com Victoria Blues Society Box 5157 Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 CANADA 250-592-5764 victoriabluessociety.ca debrhymer@shaw.ca
Blues Festival Guide 2018
91
United by Music North America
Playing the Blues to Challenge Assumptions
UBMNA associate artist ambassador Marlana VanHoose performing “At Last” with Lisa Mann and Sonny Hess at the Waterfront Blues Festival. Photo by Amanda Gresham
Imagine a world in which no prejudice exists based upon race, creed, color, gender – or developmental challenge. United by Music aims to create that world through music. United by Music, a performance-based program and band for musically talented people with development challenges and delays, was created in the Netherlands in 2006 by Joris van Wijngaarden, a health care industry executive. Van Wijngaarden worked with the late blues artist Candye Kane to hone the concept behind United by Music in the Netherlands. To expand the program to North America, Kane suggested van Wijngaarden speak with nonprofit industry expert and music supporter Barbara Hammerman, who jumped on board with music festival and event producer Amanda Gresham to found and direct United by Music North America (UBMNA) in 2012. Since then, this extraordinary program has built a loyal fanbase of enthusiastic audiences from coast to coast. “I believe that a society is judged by how we treat the most vulnerable amongst us. Do we exclude them, do we treat them
differently or do we invite them in? At UBMNA, we not only invite them in, we put them on stage where they can shine,” says Hammerman. The UBMNA program and band blends neuro-diverse and neuro-typical people of musical talent. A unique aspect of UBMNA is the inclusion of program artists and professional musicians, playing and learning together, in all activities from rehearsals and workshops to performances. It currently features 25 members, and – funding permitting – will expand their membership; UBMNA is always on the look-out for new artists. It’s not so easy to discover these often-hidden people of musical talent, but UBMNA finds artists through periodic open audition parties, word of mouth and collaboration with other similarly missioned groups. Though there is learning at all points, UBMNA is not an instruction program or school. It is a free-of-charge selective program for those with musical talent who can commit to the band, maintain a consistent rehearsal schedule, support each
UBMNA band and mentors post-performance at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, OR. Photo by Dave Corry
92
Blues Festival Guide 2018
other and work collectively to build abilities, have fun and entertain the general public. It is a program to help these artists develop their talents and musical careers where there are few other outlets. Gresham, who serves as UBMNA’s producing artistic director explains, “In United by Music, we imagine a world where these differences are celebrated and musical talent is encouraged to soar to the highest levels possible for each individual. On stages from Memphis, to St. Louis, to Lexington, Portland, Tacoma to Seattle our unified band is challenging assumptions and providing entertainment.” Based in Portland, OR, Hammerman and Gresham collaborate selected artists, mentors and supporters across America to make this program a reality. Gresham and Music Director Dave Fleschner work with band members and other UBMNA mentors – both resident mentors and pro musicians traveling through town – in weekly rehearsals to create performance shows to play at festivals and events. Why blues music? As Hammerman observes, “Many of the original blues men and women came from historically chanceless populations. Much like those with developmental challenges and delays today, these groups have not been included and have had limits placed upon them merely because of their circumstance.” The UBMNA band has played at festivals, clubs, private and corporate events across the country. They were even invited to perform on Beale Street during the 2017 and 2018 International Blue Challenges. The band will also perform at the U.S.A Games for Special Olympics this summer in Seattle, WA.
In their own words… Christone “Kingfish” Ingram Guitar and vocals “Blues and United by Music helps some of us who have special needs to cope with it. When we are on stage, we just forget about it because we’re having a lot of fun. I turn into a big bold person that just wants to show people what he can do.” Jessica Raz Vocalist “My dream is to make music all over the world. United by Music has helped me to make that dream a reality.” Nick Baker Piano and vocals “When I am on stage with United by Music, I am completely part of something bigger. Many individuals who are disabled are ABLE to come together and perform with each other.”
Blues Festival Guide 2018
93
On stage at the UBM Europe’s Spring Showcase in the Netherlands in 2016. Photo by Christiaan Breur
The newest milestone for UBMNA program artists is laying tracks at the Falcon Recording Studio in Portland, OR, working with a production team including Hammerman, Gresham, Fleschner, other program mentors and Jim Pugh of Little Village Foundation. At print, the team is mixing, mastering at Greaseland Studios with Kid Andersen and readying the project for a summer 2018 release! A growing number of blues artists support, celebrate and mentor the UBMNA band and program, including Bobby Rush, Tommy Castro, Kenny Neal, Janiva Magness, John Nemeth, Vasti Jackson, Lisa Mann, Karen Lovely, Curley Taylor, Doug MacLeod, Curtis Salgado, Nick Schnebelen, Lee Oskar, JJ Thames, Markey Blue, Brigitte Rios Purdy, Julie Amici, Duffy Bishop and Shemekia Copeland, among many others. Joining the band as associate artist ambassadors when their performance schedules permit are Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Marlana VanHoose. Rounding out the newest addition to the UBMNA team is Houston-based Sara Grace and Campfire Soul, the first youth mentors. Barbara B. Newman, president and CEO of the Blues Foundation, agrees, “United by Music is not just about young people. It makes a statement that the blues transcends everything. It doesn’t matter what challenges you might have or what your life has been like. It’s music that’s powerful and community building, and it makes a statement that everybody and anybody who wants to create music, should be able to create music – and the rest of us want to hear it!” United by Music North America is a non-profit organization that is made possible through volunteer support, individual donors, public grants and private sponsorships. To learn more about the program, check out their show schedule or make a donation, visit ubmna.org. Casting call! Are you or someone you know musically talented and with a developmental delay or challenge such as autism? Are you interested in having UBMNA perform or start a program in your community? Contact Barbara Hammerman or Amanda Gresham: 253/225-7655 or BarbaraHammerman@gmail.com
94
Blues Festival Guide 2018
Blues Festival Guide 2018
95
Festivals Receive KBA
The Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival has raised over one million dollars for a number of different charities. Bluesfest Byron Bay has grown into a 5-day event presenting over 200 performances. Both these festivals feature renowned headliners, beautiful settings and truly contribute to the blues scene. As such, they are the deserving recipients of the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) Award for 2018! Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival Founded in 1998, the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival is one of the premier music festivals in the country. For over 20 years, tens of thousands of music fans have come out to this two-day festival located on the sandy shore of the Chesapeake Bay, just outside of Annapolis, MD, to enjoy local food and drink as well as outstanding musical acts. The festival was founded with the mission of giving back to deserving causes while showcasing world-class blues – all in a picturesque environment that has helped make this event a must for fans and artists alike. This non-profit event, completely run by volunteers, has not only featured headlining acts such as Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, Joe Bonamassa, Aretha Franklin and James Brown, but has also raised over one million dollars for a number of different charities over the years. Teaming with national organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Special Olympics, the festival has helped countless deserving children and young adults realize their dreams. Keeping true to their local ties, the festival has also helped local organizations such as Camp Face which provides a safe and comforting environment for children with facial anomalies, Special Love
Buddy Guy performs on the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival stage. Photo by Duane Heaton
96
Blues Festival Guide 2018
which hosts camps for children with cancer as well as their siblings, and We Care and Friends which provides food, shelter and support directly to those in need in Annapolis and the surrounding area. The Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival is honored and humbled to be recognized by the Blues Foundation with the 2018 Keeping the Blues Alive Award, and would like to thank all that have made the last 20 years possible: to the volunteers who dedicate their time year after year, the sponsors who believe in the festival’s mission and enable helping those in need and, most importantly, the dedicated fans who support the festival’s causes and keep the blues alive! On May 19-20, 2018, the Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival will also celebrate its 20th anniversary. This milestone event will feature Brian Setzer’s Rockabilly Riot, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, Keb’ Mo’, Delbert McClinton, Doyle Bramhall II, Shemekia Copeland, Mike Zito, Mr. Sipp, Heather Gillis and more. For more information, visit www.bayblues.org
Bluesfest Byron Bay Bluesfest Byron Bay is an annual music festival that has been held since 1990 in the Byron Bay area of Australia. It features a large selection of blues and roots musicians from around the world and is considered one of the world’s leading contemporary music festivals. Initially running for three days to a crowd of 6,000, it now runs for five days over Easter weekend and attracts an audience of over 100,000 music fans. Each year Bluesfest presents over 200 performances on several stages, as well as camping for over 6,000 people on site. Past blues and roots artists that have been showcased include Mavis Staples, Bob Dylan, John Mayer, Trombone Shorty, Irma Thomas, B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Bo Diddley, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Isbell, St Paul and the Broken Bones and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, among many others. In addition to bringing some of
Bluesfest Byron Bay in Australia attracts audiences exceeding 100,000 fans. Photo by Joseph Mayers
the world’s best blues artists to Australia, Festival Director Peter Noble prides himself on discovering new talent before they become well known and introducing them to a very appreciative Bluesfest crowd. This year’s festival was one of the most eclectic in its history. Artists who pilgrimaged to Byron Bay in 2018 included Robert Plant, Lionel Richie, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Kesha, Seal, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crowe, Melissa Etheridge and Michael Franti and Spearhead – as well as Bobby Rush who made his Bluesfest debut and Walter Trout who returned for the first time since 1994! Bluesfest has been nominated eight times for Best International Music Festival in the Pollstar Awards, 2017’s nomination being its sixth in a row. Upon receiving the 2018 Keeping the Blues Alive Award, Noble said, “After being the major presenter of blues in Australia for 40 years, and the director of Bluesfest for almost 30 years, it is an honor to receive this award on behalf of Bluesfest, blues and associated music in Australia. Thanks to all the music lovers who come every year and help to keep the blues alive in Byron Bay.” Learn more at: www.bluesfest.com.au
Blues Festival Guide 2018
97
PLAN YOUR BLUES
2018 BFG Sponsor
FESTIVAL CALENDAR
Grab a pen and circle the festivals you want to attend this season. INFORMATION BELIEVED TO BE CORRECT BUT NOT GUARANTEED. CHECK BEFORE YOU GO! DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
May 3 - 18
Juneau Jazz & Classics
Juneau, Alaska, USA
jazzandclassics.org
May 5
Blues, Brews & Barbcue
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, USA
thecapitoltheatre.org
May 5
Spring Blues Fling
Sacramento, California, USA
SwabbiesOnTheRiver.com/calendar
May 6
Blankets & Blues
Fredericksburg, Texas, USA
baronscreekside.com
May 9
Big Llou's Juke Joynt Hall of Fame
Memphis, Tennessee, USA
https://bit.ly/2EKL8hr
May 10 - 13
Gator By The Bay
San Diego, California, USA
gatorbythebay.com
May 11 - 14
Kimbrough Cotton-Pacth Blues Festival
Holly Springs, New York, USA
sonandfriendsofjuniorkimbrough.wordpress.com
May 11 - 13
Kwadendamme Bluesfestival
Kwadendamme, Netherlands
bluestown.nl
May 12
Lincoln Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Lincoln, United Kingdom
lincolnbluesfestival.co.uk
May 12
Pinetop Boogie And Crawfish Boil
Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA
pinetopperkinsfoundation.org
May 12
Wolverton Folk & Blues Fair
Shorwell, United Kingdom
folkandblues.org.uk/
May 13
Harpenden Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Harpenden, United Kingdom
solidentertainments.com/blues/harpenden
May 17 - 20
Hill Country Harmonica Festival
Waterford, Mississippi, USA
midwestharmonica.net/hillcountryharmonica2018
May 18 - 20
New England Blues Summit
Sturbridge, Massachusetts, USA
newenglandbluessummit.com
May 19 - 20
Baton Rouge Soul Food Festival
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
brsoulfoodfest.com
May 19 - 20
Carolina Blues Festival
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
piedmontblues.org
May 19 - 20
Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival
Annapolis, Maryland, USA
bayblues.org
May 19 - 20
Doheny Blues Festival
Dana Point, California, USA
dohenybluesfestival.eventbrite.com/?aff=bfg
May 19
Northeast Blues Guitar Summit
Hartford, Connecticut, USA
blackeyedsallys.com
May 19
Springs Preserve Brews & Blues Festival
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
springspreserve.org/events/?id=2166
May 19
Stomp The Blues
Springfield, Missouri, USA
stomptheblues.net
May 20
NCFBS Women in Blues Showcase
Gainesville, Florida, USA
ncfblues.org
May 25 - June 10
Piccolo Spoleto Blues Series
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
piccolospoleto.com
May 25 - 27
Silver City Blues Festival
Silver City, New Mexico, USA
silvercitybluesfestival.org
May 26
Duvelblues 2018
Ruisbroek-Puurs, Belgium
duvelblues.be
May 26 - 27
Exit 56 Blues Fest
Brownsville, Tennessee, USA
exit56blues.com
May 26 - 27
Simi Valley Cajun & Blues Music Festival
Simi Valley, California, USA
simicajun.org
May 26
Slidell Jazz and Blues Festival
Slidell, Louisiana, USA
slidelljazzandblues.com
May 27
Blues Between The Bridges
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
gbusyblues.com
May 27
Wall Hill Blues Fest
Byhalia, Mississippi, USA
https://bit.ly/2JMciIp
June 1 - 3
Benicassim Blues Festival
Benicassim (Castellon), Spain
benicassimblues.com
June 1 - 2
Brevard Blues N' BBQ Festival
Brevard, North Carolina, USA
brevardbluesfestival.com
June 1 - 2
Germantown Schnitzelburg Blues Festival
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
facebook.com/groups/gtownbluesfest
June 1 - 2
Gladstone SummerTime BluesFest
Gladstone, Missouri, USA
gladstonechamber.com
June 1 - 2
Smokin' in Steele BBQ & Blues Fest
Owatonna, Minnesota, USA
smokininsteele.com
June 2
Newport Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Newport, United Kingdom
solidentertainments.com/blues/newport
June 2
Ojai Blues Fest
Oak View, California, USA
facebook.com/ojaibluesfest
June 2
Spring, Wine, Beer, Blues and Balloon Festival
Springfield, Nebraska, USA
soaringwingswine.com/event/1782
June 3 - 8
Chicago Blues Camp
Highland Park, Illinois, USA
chicagobluescamp.com
June 3
Leicester Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Leicester, United Kingdom
solidentertainments.com/blues/leicester
June 7 - 18
The KOOL FM Barrie Jazz And Blues Festival XXIII
Barrie/Simcoe County/York Region, Ontario, Canada
barriejazzbluesfest.com
June 8 - 9
Canton Blues Fest
Canton, Ohio, USA
cantonchamber.org/canton-blues-fest
June 8 - 9
Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival
Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA
colemanhawkins.org
98
Blues Festival Guide 2018
WEBSITE
2018 BFG Sponsor
DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
WEBSITE
June 8 - 9
Greeley Blues Jam
Greeley, Colorado, USA
greeleybluesjam.com
June 8 - 10
Omaha Summer Arts Festival
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
summerarts.org
June 8 - 10
Tinner Hill Blues Festival
Falls Church, Virginia, USA
tinnerhill.org
June 9
Blues and Bones Festival
Angels Camp, Idaho, USA
BluesandBones.com
June 9
Flagstaff Blues and Brews
Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
flagstaffblues.com
June 10
Billtown Blues Festival
Hughesville, Pennsylvania, USA
billtownblues.org
June 10
Russian River Blues Festival
Guerneville, California, USA
russianriverfestivals.com
June 11 - 16
Bentonia Blues Festival
Bentonia, Mississippi, USA
facebook.com/BentoniaBluesFestival
June 15 - 16
Alpine Country Blues Festival
Alpine, Arizona, USA
alpineazmusicfest.com/cms
June 15
BBQ & Blues Bash
Buffalo, New York, USA
bbqbluesbash.com
June 15 - 16
Blues on the Fox
Aurora, Illinois, USA
riveredgeaurora.com
June 15 - 17
Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival
Gahanna, Ohio, USA
creeksidebluesandjazz.com
June 15 - 16
Monroe Balloon and Blues Festival
Monroe, Wisconsin, USA
monroeballoonrally.com
June 15 - 17
Oregon Garden BrewCamp
Silverton, Oregon, USA
brewcampfest.com
June 16
Brews & Blues
Lancaster, Wisconsin, USA
brewsandblueswi.com
June 16
Cleethorpes Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Cleethorpes, United Kingdom
cleethorpesbluesfestival.co.uk
June 16 - 17
Franklin Blues and BBQ
Franklin, Pennsylvania, USA
franklinbluesandbbq.org
June 16
Shenandoah Valley Blues & Brews Festival
Staunton, Virginia, USA
shenandoahconcerts.com
June 16
State Street Blues Stroll 18th Annual
Media, Pennsylvania, USA
statestreetblues.com
June 16
Utah Blues Festival
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
utahbluesfest.org
June 17
Southern Fried Blues & Wine Fundraiser
Vallejo, California, USA
WestCoastBluesSociety.org
June 17
Stamford Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival
Stamford, United Kingdom
stamfordbluesfestival.co.uk
June 21 - 23
River Jam
Mystic, Connecticut, USA
mysticriverjam.com
June 22 - 24
Cape Fear Blues Festival
Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
capefearblues.org
June 23 - 24
Blues From The Top
Winter Park, Colorado, USA
facebook.com/bluesfromthetop/
Blues Festival Guide 2018
99
2018 BFG Sponsor
DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
WEBSITE
June 23 - 24
Long Beach Bayou Festival, 32nd Annual
Long Beach, California, USA
facebook.com/LongBeachBayouFestival
June 29 - Aug. 31
Athens Summer Concert Series
Athens, New York, USA
apacrocks.com
June 29 - July 1
Randers City Blues Festival
Randers, Denmark
randers-cityblues.dk
June 29
Summerblues
Basel, Switzerland
summerblues.ch
July 4
Spirit of Kansas Blues Festival
Topeka, Kansas, USA
topekabluessociety.org
July 6 - 7
Mississippi Valley Blues Festival
Davenport, Iowa, USA
mvbs.org
July 6 - 7
Smokin' Blues Fest 8
Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada
smokinbluesfest.ca
July 6 - 8
Tall City Blues Fest
Midland, Texas, USA
tallcitybluesfest.com
July 6 - 8
Thunder Bay Blues Festival
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
tbayblues.ca
July 6 - Aug. 3
Vallemaggia Magic Blues
Vallemaggia, Switzerland
magicblues.ch
July 6 - 7
Zoofest
Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
zoobar.com
July 7 - 8
Grassroots Blues Festival
Duck Hill, Mississippi, USA
grassrootsbluesfest.com
July 7 - 8
Hayward/ Russell City Blues Festival
Hayward, California, USA
westcoastbluessociety.org
July 12 - 15
Bluesfest Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
bluesfestwindsor.com
July 12 - 15
Greenwood Blues Cruise, 18th Annual
Greenwood, South Carolina, USA
greenwoodbluescruise.com
July 12 - 15
LiUNA! Bluesfest Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
bluesfestwindsor.com
July 12 - 14
Santa Maria Blues
Santa Maria - Azores, Portugal
santamariablues.com
July 14 - 15
Iron Mountain Music Festival
Mission, British Columbia, Canada
ironmountainmusicfestival.com
July 14
New Glarus Blues, Brews & Food Truck Festival
New Glarus, Wisconsin, USA
facebook.com/NGBBFTF
July 14 - 15
North Atlantic Blues Festival
Rockland, Maine, USA
northatlanticbluesfestival.com
July 14
Playing with Fire Free Concert Series
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
playingwithfireomaha.net
July 19 - 22
Porretta Soul Festival
Porretta Terme, Italy
porrettasoul.it
July 20 - 22
Cathedral Park Jazz Festival
Portland, Oregon, USA
jazzoregon.com
July 20 - 21
Lowertown Blues & Funk Fest
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
lowertownbluesfestival.com
July 20 - 22
Winthrop Rhythm & Blues Festival
Winthrop, Washington, USA
winthropbluesfestival.org
Sept. 29
100
New Albany Blues Brew & BBQ Festival
Blues Festival Guide 2018
New Albany, IN
2018 BFG Sponsor
DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
WEBSITE
July 21
Roadhouse Bluesfest, 5th Annual
Magnolia, Delaware, USA
centraldelawareblues.com
July 22 - 27
Blues & Swing Week
Elkins, West Virginia, USA
augustaheritagecenter.org
July 27 - 28
Canal Winchester's Blues and Ribfest
Canal Winchester, Ohio, USA
bluesandribfest.com
July 27 - 28
Prairie Dog Blues Festival
Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin, USA
prairiedogblues.com
July 28
Blues, Brews & Brats
Waterville, Ohio, USA
bluesbrewsandbrats.com
July 30 - Aug. 5
Calgary International Blues Festival
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
calgarybluesfest.com
July 31 - Aug. 4
Jus' Blues Music Awards Week 2018
Tunica, Mississippi, USA
jusblues.org
Aug. 2 - 5
Mammoth Festival of Beers & Bluesapalooza, 23rd
Mammoth Lakes, California, USA
mammothbluesbrewsfest.com
Aug. 2 - 5
Mount Baker R&B Festival
Bellingham, Washington, USA
bakerblues.com
Aug. 3 - 5
Blue Wing Blues Festival
Upper Lake 95485, California, USA
TallmanHotel.com
Aug. 3 - 5
Blues on the Chippewa
Durand, Wisconsin, USA
bluesonthechippewa.com
Aug. 3 - 5
Erie's Blues & Jazz Festival
Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
facebook.com/BluesandJazzFestival
Aug. 3 - 19
Jazz & Beyond
Carson City, Nevada, USA
jazzcarsoncity.com
Aug. 3 - 4
Magic City Blues
Billings, Montana, USA
magiccityblues.com
Aug. 3 - 4
Sisters Rhythm & Brews Festival
Sisters, Oregon, USA
sistersrhythmandbrews.com
Aug. 4
Blue Ribbon Blues Fest
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
southeastiowabluessociety.org
Aug. 4
Blues On The Water,The Toledo Blues Fest
Toledo, Ohio, USA
promenadeconcerts.com/concerts/2018-blues-fest
Aug. 4
Muddy River Free Blues Festival
Bismarck, North Dakota, USA
facebook.com/MRBSND
Aug. 4
Stafford Springs Blues Festival
Stafford Springs, Connecticut, USA
staffordspringsbluesfest.com
Aug. 9 - 12
TD Kitchener Blues Festival
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
kitchenerbluesfestival.com
Aug. 10 - 12
Bayfront Blues Festival
Duluth, Minnesota, USA
bayfrontblues.com
Aug. 10 - 12
Heritage Music BluesFest
Wheeling, West Virginia, USA
heritagemusicfest.com
Aug. 10 - 12
Long Beach Jazz Festival, 31st Annual
Long Beach, California, USA
facebook.com/longbeachjazzfestival
Aug. 10 - 11
PEC FEST
Milford, Ontario, Canada
pecfest.ca
Aug. 10 - 12
Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival
Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA
sunflowerfest.org
Blues Festival Guide 2018
101
2018 BFG Sponsor
DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
WEBSITE
Aug. 10 - 11
Waukesha Blues Fest
Delafield, Wisconsin, USA
waukeshabluesfest.com
Aug. 12
The Bloomington Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Festival
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
bloomingtonboogies.com/home
Aug. 11
Cincy Blues Fest
Cncinnati, Ohio, USA
cincybluesfest.org
Aug. 11
Gloucester Blues Festival
Gloucester, Maine, USA
gloucesterbluesfestival.com
Aug. 11
Joliet Blues Festival
Joliet, Illinois, USA
jolietbluesfestival.com
Aug. 17 - 18
Ann Arbor Blues Festival
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
a2bluesfestival.com
Aug. 17 - 19
Baja Blues Fest, 7th Annual
Rosarito Beach, Mexico
bajabluesfest.org
Aug. 17 - 18
Big Bull Falls Blues Fest
Wausau, Wisconsin, USA
wausauevents.org/big-bull-falls-blues-fest.html
Aug. 17 - 19
Blues, Brews & BBQ
McHenry, Illinois, USA
mrbbb.com
Aug. 17 - 18
Chenango Blues Festival
Norwich, New York, USA
chenangobluesfest.org
Aug. 17 - 18
Fargo Blues Festival
Fargo, North Dakota, USA
fargobluesfest.com
Aug. 17 - 18
Madison Ribberfest
Madison, Indiana, USA
madisonribberfest.com
Aug. 18
Hot August Music Festival
Cockeysville, Maryland, USA
hotaugustmusicfestival.com
Aug. 18
Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival
Morristown, New Jersey, USA
morristownjazzandblues.org
Aug. 23 - 26
Trois-Rivieres en Blues
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada
3renblues.com
Aug. 24 - 26
Edmonton Blues Festival
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
BluesInternationalltd.com
Aug. 24 - 25
Hot August Blues Festival
Hardin, Kentucky, USA
kenlakeblues.com
Aug. 25 - 26
North River Blues Festival
Marshfield, Massachusetts, USA
rhythmroomentertainment.com
Aug. 25
Playing with Fire Free Concert Series
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
playingwithfireomaha.net
Aug. 25 - 26
Putnam County Wine & Food Fest
Patterson, New York, USA
putnamcountywinefest.com
Aug. 25
Trinidaddio Blues & Cultural Festival
Trinidad, Colorado, USA
trinidaddiobluesfest.com
Aug. 31 - Sept. 2
Big Muddy Blues Festival, 23rd Annual
Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
bigmuddybluesfestival.com
Aug. 31
Black Prairie Blues Festival
West Point, Mississippi, USA
blackprairieblues.com
Aug. 31 - Sept. 2
Dusk til Dawn Blues Festival
Rentiesville, Oklahoma, USA
dcminnerblues.com
Aug. 31 - Sept. 1
Nickel Plate Blues Fest
Fishers (Indianapolis), Indiana, USA
fishers.in.us/Index.aspx?NID=420
Sept. 1 - 2
Acres of Blues
Eureka, California, USA
acresofblues.com
Sept. 1
Hot Springs Blues Festival
Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA
spacityblues.org
Sept. 1 - 2
Vancouver Island Blues Bash
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
jazzvictoria.ca
Sept. 6 - 9
Big Blues Bender
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
bigbluesbender.com
Sept. 6 - 9
Tim Hortons Southside Shuffle Blues & Jazz Festival
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
southsideshuffle.com
Sept. 7 - 8
Coleman Hawkins Blues Festival
Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA
colemanhawkins.org
Sept. 7 - 9
Harvest Time blues
Monaghan, Ireland
harvestblues.ie
Sept. 8
Panhandle Bluesfest at Priest River
Priest River, Idaho, USA
panhandleblues.com
Sept. 8
Phoenixville Blues Festival
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, USA
pvilleblues.org
Sept. 8
San Diego Blues Festival
San Diego, California, USA
sdbluesfest.com
Sept. 9
Brownsburg Blues and BBQ Festival
Brownsburg, Indiana, USA
facebook.com/events/387887884971789
Sept. 10 - 14
European Blues Cruise 2018
GENOA, Italy
europeanbluescruise.com
Sept. 11 - 15
European Blues Cruise
Marseilles, France
europeanbluescruise.com
Sept. 15
Blue Ridge Blues & BBQ Festival
Blue Ridge, Georgia, USA
facebook.com/BlueRidgeBluesandBBQ
Sept. 14 -16
Stonebridge Wasaga Beach Blues
Wasaga Beach, Yukon, Canada
wasagabeachblues.com
Sept. 15
Greater Ozarks Music Festival
Nixa, Missouri, USA
facebook.com/BluesSocietyOfTheOzarks
Sept. 15
Library Park Blues Festival
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
libraryparkbluesfestival.com
Sept. 15
Paxico Blues Festival
Paxico, Kansas, USA
paxicobluesfest.com
Sept. 21 - 23
Covered Bridge Bluegrass Festival
Marysville, Ohio, USA
coveredbridgefestival.com
Sept. 21 - 22
Michigan BluesFest
Lansing, Michigan, USA
michiganluesfest.com
Sept. 21 - 22
Sam Chatmon Music Festival
Hollandale, Mississippi, USA
hollandaleblues.com
Sept. 22 - 23
Martinez Blues Festival
Martinez, California, USA
martinezbluesfestival.com
Sept. 22 - 23
Windy City Blues Festival
Lyons, Illinois, USA
windycitybluesfest.org
Sept. 23
Red, White & Blues
Middleboro, Massachusetts, USA
nebluesfest.com
Sept. 28 - 29
Bogalusa Blues & Heritage Festival
Bogalusa, Louisiana, USA
bogalusablues.com
Sept. 29
Marion County Blues & BBQ Festival
Marion, Ohio, USA
975wdif.com
Oct. 3 - 6
King Biscuit Blues Festival
Helena, Arkansas, USA
kingbiscuitfestival.com
102
Blues Festival Guide 2018
2018 BFG Sponsor
DATE
FESTIVAL NAME
CITY/STATE/COUNTRY
WEBSITE
Oct. 4 - 7
Carolina Downhome Blues Festival, 22nd Annual
Camden, South Carolina, USA
fineartscenter.org
Oct. 5 - 6
Chain O Lakes Blues Festival
Waupaca, Wisconsin, USA
waupacamemories.com/event/chain-o-lakes-blues-festival
Oct. 11 - 14
Deep Blues Festival
Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA
deepbluesfest.com
Oct. 12 - 14
Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
crescentcitybluesfest.com
Oct. 12 - 13
Garvin Gate Blues Festival
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
garvingatebluesfestival.com
Oct. 19 - 21
Camping with the Blues
Brooksville, Florida, USA
campingwiththeblues.com
Oct. 19 - 20
St Benedict Blues Festival 2018
St Augustine, Florida, USA
facebook.com/St-Benedict-Blues-Festival
Oct. 20
Rowan Blues and Jazz Festival
Salisbury, North Carolina, USA
rowanbluesandjazz.org
Oct. 20
T-Bone Walker Day
Linden, Texas, USA
facebook.com/LindenEconDevCorps
Oct. 25 - 28
Copenhagen Blues Festival
Copenhagen, Denmark
copenhagenbluesfestival.dk
Nov. 2 - 3
Blues Heaven Festival
Frederikshavn, Denmark
bluesheaven.dk
Nov. 2 - 3
Forgotten Music Festival
Mexico Beach, Florida, USA
forgottenmusicfestival.com
Nov. 3
Blues Stage @ South Carolina Pecan Fest
Florence, South Carolina, USA
florencedowntown.com
Nov. 9 - 11
Bude Blues, Rhythm and Rock Festival
Bude, United Kingdom
solidentertainments.com/blues/bude
Nov. 9 - 11
Signifyin' Blues
Los Angeles, California, USA
SignifyinBlues.com
Nov. 10
Tommy Johnson Blues Festival, 13 Annual
Jackson MS, Mississippi, USA
tommyjohnsonblues
Nov. 16 - 18
Reading Blues Festival
Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
readingbluesfest.com
Nov. 30 - Dec. 2
Bradenton Blues Festival
Bradenton, Florida, USA
bradentonbluesfestival.org
Nov. 30
Gainesville Downtown Blues Concert
Gainesville, Florida, USA
ncfblues.org
Jan. 17 - 20, 2019
MLK Jr. Blues Festival
Chester, South Carolina, USA
facebook.com/MLKJrBluesFestival
Feb. 3 - 10, 2019
Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
bluescruise.com/32-feb-2019-eastern-caribbean
Feb. 21 - 24, 2019 Boquete Jazz and Blues Festival
Boquete, Panama
boquetejazzandbluesfestival.com
Feb. 22 - 24, 2019 Destination Blues Music Festival
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, USA
DestinationBlues.org
Apr. 14, 2019
Kiawah Island, South Carolina, USA
freshfieldsvillage.com
Blues By the Sea, 15th Annual
Blues Festival Guide 2018
103
104
Blues Festival Guide 2018