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The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event that features four days of performances by top-tier blues
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
 musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June. The event has always taken place in Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)

Grant Park is a large park in the Chicago Loop Community areas of Chicago of , United States. The park's most notable features are Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain and the Art Institute of Chicago....
, adjacent to the Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States. The third-largest of the Great Lakes, it is bounded, from west to east, by the U.S....
 waterfront east of the Loop
Chicago Loop

The Loop is the term used to designate the historical center of central business district Chicago. Most accurately, the term refers to an area bounded by a public transit circuit along Lake Street on the north, Wabash Avenue on the east, Van Buren Street on the south, and Wells Street on the west, but in general use it refers to the whole cen...
 in Chicago.

ago has a storied history
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
 with blues that goes back generations stemming from the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)

The Great Migration was the movement of 1.3 million African-Americans out of the Southern United States to the Northern United States, Midwestern United States and Western United States from 1916 to 1930....
 from the South
Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States....
 and particularly the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta

The Mississippi Delta is the distinct northwest section of the state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi River and Yazoo Rivers. Technically not a River delta but part of an alluvial plain, it has been said that the Delta "begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, Mississippi" ...
 region in pursuit of advancement and better career possibilities for musicians.






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The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event that features four days of performances by top-tier blues
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
 musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special Events, and always occurs in early June. The event has always taken place in Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)

Grant Park is a large park in the Chicago Loop Community areas of Chicago of , United States. The park's most notable features are Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain and the Art Institute of Chicago....
, adjacent to the Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States. The third-largest of the Great Lakes, it is bounded, from west to east, by the U.S....
 waterfront east of the Loop
Chicago Loop

The Loop is the term used to designate the historical center of central business district Chicago. Most accurately, the term refers to an area bounded by a public transit circuit along Lake Street on the north, Wabash Avenue on the east, Van Buren Street on the south, and Wells Street on the west, but in general use it refers to the whole cen...
 in Chicago.

History of the festival

Chicago has a storied history
Blues

Blues is a music genre based on the use of the blues chord progressions and the blue notes. Though several blues musical form s exist, the 12-bar blues chord progressions are the most frequently encountered....
 with blues that goes back generations stemming from the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)

The Great Migration was the movement of 1.3 million African-Americans out of the Southern United States to the Northern United States, Midwestern United States and Western United States from 1916 to 1930....
 from the South
Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States....
 and particularly the Mississippi Delta
Mississippi Delta

The Mississippi Delta is the distinct northwest section of the state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi River and Yazoo Rivers. Technically not a River delta but part of an alluvial plain, it has been said that the Delta "begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, Mississippi" ...
 region in pursuit of advancement and better career possibilities for musicians. Created by Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg
Lois Weisberg

Lois Weisberg is the Commission of Cultural Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. She founded the Chicago Cultural Center and was responsible for the establishment of the renowned Gallery 37 program, which gathered Chicago youths to a vacant block in downtown Chicago to make art; she also created the Taste of Chicago festival, the Chicago Blues Fe...
, the festival began in 1984,, a year after the death of McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician and is generally considered "the Father of Chicago blues"....
, who is generally considered "the father of Chicago blues
Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues and adding electric guitar, amplified bass guitar, Drum kit, piano, and sometimes saxophone, and making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier....
". Each year the organizers choose a theme, generally to honor a recently departed Blues musician. Obviously, Chicago blues
Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues and adding electric guitar, amplified bass guitar, Drum kit, piano, and sometimes saxophone, and making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier....
 acts are common. Also, in keeping with the Blues' influence on other musical genres, there are some Soul
Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the African American culture through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, Secularity testifying." The genre occasion...
, Jazz blues
Jazz blues

Jazz blues is a musical style that combines jazz and blues.The term also refers to any tune that follows the standard 12-bar blues chord progression, whilst being played in the jazz style, rather than the traditional blues style....
 and Blues-rock
Blues-rock

Blues-rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy Improvisation#Musical_improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jam session with rock and roll styles....
 acts. Since those early beginnings the festival has risen to a status that the City of Chicago bills as the world's largest free concert of its kind. The Blues Festival is the largest of the city's music festivals.

Festival 2007

The 24th occurrence of the festival was held between June 7-June 10 2007. The event is the fourth largest festival in Chicago. Six stages were expected to draw a crowd of 750,000 patrons over the 4 days of the concert.

Past performers

Albert King
Albert King

Albert King was an United States blues guitarist and singer....
, B. B. King
B. B. King

B. B. King is an United States blues guitarist and singer-songwriter known for his expressive singing and inimitable guitar playing. As Komara has written, "King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed." Critic...
, Bill Doggett
Bill Doggett

William Ballard Doggett was an United States jazz and rhythm and blues pianist and organist.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his mother, a church pianist, introduced him to music when he was 9 years old....
, Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley , was an original and influential American rock and roll singer, guitarist, and songwriter. He was known as "The Originator" because of his key role in the transition from blues music to rock & roll, influencing a host of legendary acts including Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton....
, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Bobby Rush
Bobby Rush (musician)

Bobby Rush is an United States blues and rhythm and blues musician, composer and singer. He was born Emmit Ellis Jr. in Homer, Louisiana....
, Buckwheat Zydeco
Buckwheat Zydeco

Buckwheat Zydeco is an United States accordionist and zydeco performer. He is one of the few to achieve mainstream success.In 1971 in music, he founded Buckwheat & the Hitchhikers, a funk band that he led for five years before switching to zydeco....
, Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is a five-time Grammy Award-winning United States blues and rock music guitarist and singer. Known as an inspiration to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and other guitarists, Guy is considered an important exponent of Chicago blues....
, Calvin Jones
Calvin Jones (musician)

Calvin James Jones, Sr. was a trombonist, bassist, pianist, bandleader, composer and educator. Born in Chicago, Illinois, raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Calvin Jones moved to Washington, DC in the 1970s where he remained until his death in October 2004....
, Carey Bell
Carey Bell

Carey Bell was an American musician who played the harmonica in the musical style of Chicago blues. Bell played harp and bass for other blues icons for decades, including Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor,Louisiana Red and Jimmy Dawkins....
, Carl Perkins
Carl Perkins

Carl Lee Perkins was an United States of America pioneer of rockabilly music who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee beginning in 1954....
, Chicago Blues Museum All Stars, Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter.Chuck Berry is an influential figure and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music....
, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Dr. John
Dr. John

Dr. John is the stage name of Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. , a pianist, singer, and songwriter, whose music spans, and often combines, blues, boogie woogie, and rock and roll....
, Eddie Boyd
Eddie Boyd

Edward Riley Boyd known as Eddie Boyd was a blues piano player, born on Stovall's Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, Mississippi....
, Eddie Vinson
Eddie Vinson

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was an United States jump blues, jazz, bebop and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after a lye-laced hair straightener destroyed his hair....
, Eddy Clearwater
Eddy Clearwater

Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater is the stage name of Edward Harrington , an United States Chicago blues musician....
, Etta James
Etta James

Etta James is an American blues, soul music, rhythm and blues, rock & roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter. James is the winner of four Grammys and seventeen Blues Music Awards....
, Fenton Robinson
Fenton Robinson

Fenton Robinson was a blues singer and exponent of the Chicago Blues guitar.His signature song, "Somebody Loan Me a Dime" was cover version by Boz Scaggs, but attributed to Scaggs himself, resulting in legal battles....
, Fontella Bass
Fontella Bass

Fontella Bass is an United States Soul music singer, who is best known for the 1965 Rhythm and blues hit record "Rescue Me "....
, Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard

Hank Ballard was an rhythm and blues singer, the lead vocalist of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and one of the first proto-rock 'n' roll to emerge in the early 1950s....
, Henry Townsend
Henry Townsend (musician)

Henry 'Mule' Townsend was an United States blues singer, guitarist and pianist....
, Homesick James
Homesick James

Homesick James was a African American American blues musician. He is believed to have been born John William Henderson, but later used the name James A....
, Hubert Sumlin
Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an United States blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band....
, James Cotton
James Cotton

James Cotton , is an United States blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter who is the bandleader for the James Cotton Blues Band. He also writes songs alone, and his solo career continues to this day....
, Jerry Portnoy
Jerry Portnoy

Jerry Portnoy is a harmonica musician.Portnoy was born in Chicago in 1943 and brought up in the vicinity of the Maxwell Street market, where his father owned a rug store....
, Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson (musician)

Jimmy Johnson is a member of the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section that was attached to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama for an extended period in the 60s and 70s....
, Jimmy Rogers
Jimmy Rogers

Jimmy Rogers was a blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player, best known for his work as a member of Muddy Waters' band of the 1950s....
, John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an influential United States post-war blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County, Mississippi near Clarksdale, Mississippi....
, Johnnie Taylor
Johnnie Taylor

Johnnie Harrison Taylor was an United States singer in a wide variety of genres, from Gospel music, blues and soul music to pop music, doo-wop and disco....
, Johnny Shines
Johnny Shines

Johnny Shines was an United States blues singer and guitarist.He was born John Ned Shines in Frayser, Memphis, Tennessee. He spent most of his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee playing slide guitar at an early age in local ?jukes? and for tips on the streets....
, Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an United States blues guitarist, Vocalist and Record producer.Johnny and Edgar Winter were nurtured at an early age by their parents in their musical pursuits....
, Junior Wells
Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Blakemore, was a Blues music vocalist and harmonica player based in Chicago who was famous for playing with Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison among others....
, Keith Richards
Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an England guitarist, songwriter, singer, record producer and a founding member of The Rolling Stones. As a guitarist, Richards is mostly known for his innovative rhythm guitar playing....
, Koko Taylor
Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor is an United States blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues." She is known primarily for her rough and powerful human voice and traditional blues stylings....
, Little Milton
Little Milton

Milton "Little Milton" Campbell, Jr. was a blues and Soul music vocalist and guitarist best known for his hits "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It." Most popular in 1960s, he became one of the lesser known greats of the genre, combining traditional lyrical structure with smoother production....
, Little Willie Littlefield
Little Willie Littlefield

Little Willie Littlefield is an United States Rhythm and blues pianist and singer....
, Lonnie Brooks
Lonnie Brooks

Lonnie Brooks is an United States blues singer and guitarist. He was born in Dubuisson, Louisiana, Louisiana....
, Lowell Fulson
Lowell Fulson

Lowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma....
, Louisiana Red
Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red is a blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who has recorded more than 50 albums. He is best known for his song "Sweet Blood Call"....
, Luther Allison
Luther Allison

File:LutherAllison1996.jpgLuther Allison was an United States blues guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas, Arkansas and moved with his family, at age twelve, to Chicago, Illinois in 1951....
, Magic Slim
Magic Slim

Magic Slim is a blues singer and guitarist....
, Matt Murphy
Matt Murphy (blues guitarist)

Matt "Guitar" Murphy is an United States blues guitarist....
, Memphis Slim
Memphis Slim

John "Memphis Slim" Chatman was a blues music pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump-blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano....
, Mick Taylor
Mick Taylor

Michael "Mick" Kevin Taylor and another performance from the Old Grey Whistle Test seem to be the only material available from this brief collaboration....
, The Neville Brothers
The Neville Brothers

The Neville Brothers, an R&B, Soul music and Jazz group, was formed in 1976 in New Orleans, LA....
, Otis Rush
Otis Rush

Otis Rush is a blues music musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound, jazz-style arpeggios and long bent notes....
, Pee Wee Crayton
Pee Wee Crayton

Connie Curtis Crayton , known as Pee Wee Crayton, was an United States Rhythm and blues and blues guitarist and singer....
, Pinetop Perkins
Pinetop Perkins

Pinetop Perkins is an United States blues musician....
, Robert Cray Band, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Snooky Pryor
Snooky Pryor

Snooky Pryor was an United States blues harp player. He claimed to have pioneered the now-common method of playing amplified harmonica by cupping a small microphone in his hands along with the harmonica, although his earliest records in the late 1940s he did not utilize this method....
, Staple Singers, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen "Stevie" Ray Vaughan was an United States blues-rock guitarist, whose broad appeal made him an influential electric blues guitarist. To date, a total of 18 albums of Vaughan's work have been released....
, Sugar Blue
Sugar Blue

Sugar Blue is a Grammy Award winning United States blues harmonica player. Sugar Blue is best known for his harmonica work with The Rolling Stones, specifically on their hit single, "Miss You "....
, Sunnyland Slim
Sunnyland Slim

Albert "Sunnyland Slim" Luandrew , was a blues pianist who was born in the Mississippi Delta and later moved to Chicago, to contribute to that city's post-war scene as a center for blues music....
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who goes by the stage name Taj Mahal, is an internationally recognized blues musician who folds various forms of world music into his offerings....
, Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was a well-known United States blues bassist, singing, songwriter, arranger and record producer. His songs, including "Little Red Rooster", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Evil ", "Spoonful", "Back Door Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "I Ain't Superstitious", "My Babe", "Wang Dang Doodle", and "Bring It on Home"...
,

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See also