The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June that features three days of performances by top-tier blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 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 at Petrillo Music Shell

Petrillo Music Shell

James C. Petrillo Music Shell or simply Petrillo Music Shell or Petrillo Bandshell as it is more commonly known, is an outdoor amphitheater/bandstand in Grant Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...

 in Grant Park

Grant Park (Chicago)

Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...

, 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. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

 waterfront east of the Loop

Chicago Loop

The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...

 in Chicago.

History of the festival

Chicago has a storied history with blues that goes back generations stemming from the Great Migration

Great Migration (African American)

The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...

 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 area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 and particularly the Mississippi Delta

Mississippi Delta

The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...

 region in pursuit of advancement and better career possibilities for musicians. Created by Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg

Lois Weisberg

Lois Weisberg was the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in Chicago, Illinois from 1989 until January 2011. She founded the Chicago Cultural Center and Friends of the Park, and was responsible for the establishment of the renowned Gallery 37 program, which gathered Chicago youths to a vacant block...

, the festival began in 1984, a year after the death of McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

, who is generally considered "the father of Chicago blues". 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, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...

 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 black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

, jazz blues and blues-rock

Blues-rock

Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...

 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.

Past performers

Albert King

Albert King

Albert King was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing.-Career:...

, B. B. King

B. B. King

Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...

, Bill Doggett

Bill Doggett

Bill Doggett was an American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist and organist. He is best known for his tracks, "Honky Tonk" and "Hippy Dippy", and variously working with The Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Jordan.-Biography:William Ballard Doggett was born in...

, Billy Branch

Billy Branch

Billy Branch is an American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues and harmonica blues.-Career:...

, Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley

Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...

, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Bobby Rush

Bobby Rush (musician)

Bobby Rush is an American blues and R&B musician, composer and singer. His style incorporates elements of soul blues, rap and funk.-Biography:...

, Buckwheat Zydeco

Buckwheat Zydeco

Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name of Stanley Dural, Jr. , an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He is one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success...

, Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

, Calvin Jones

Calvin Jones (musician)

Calvin James Jones, Sr. was an American trombonist, bassist, pianist, bandleader, composer and educator. Born in Chicago, Illinois, raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Jones moved to Washington, D.C. in the 1970s where he remained until his death from a heart attack in October 2004...

, Carey Bell

Carey Bell

Carey Bell was an American blues musician, who played the harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass for other blues musicians during the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s before embarking on a solo career...

, Carl Perkins

Carl Perkins

Carl Lee Perkins was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning during 1954...

, Chicago Blues Museum All Stars, Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Dr. John

Dr. John

Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...

, Eddie Boyd

Eddie Boyd

Edward Riley Boyd known as Eddie Boyd was an American blues piano player, born on Stovall's Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, United States.-Life and career:...

, Eddie C. Campbell

Eddie C. Campbell

Eddie C. Campbell is an American blues guitarist and singer, active in the Chicago blues scene.-Biography:...

, Eddie Vinson

Eddie Vinson

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in which his hair was accidentally destroyed by lye contained in a hair straightening product.-Biography:Vinson was born in Houston, Texas...

, Eddy Clearwater

Eddy Clearwater

Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater is the stage name of Edward Harrington ,) an American Chicago blues musician. Blues Revue said Eddy plays “joyous rave-ups…he testifies with stunning soul fervor and powerful guitar. One of the blues’ finest songwriters.” -Early life:He was born in Macon, Mississippi,...

, Etta James

Etta James

Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...

, Fenton Robinson

Fenton Robinson

Fenton Robinson was an American blues singer and exponent of the Chicago blues guitar.-Biography:Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, United States, Robinson left his home at the age of 18 to move to Memphis, Tennessee where he recorded his first single "Tennessee Woman" in 1957. He settled in Chicago...

, Fontella Bass

Fontella Bass

Fontella Bass is an American soul singer, who is best known for the 1965 R&B hit "Rescue Me", which she also co-wrote.-Early life:...

, Hank Ballard

Hank Ballard

Hank Ballard , born John Henry Kendricks, was a rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and one of the first proto-rock 'n' roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s...

, Henry Townsend

Henry Townsend (musician)

Henry 'Mule' Townsend was an American blues singer, guitarist and pianist.-Career:Townsend was born in Shelby, Mississippi and grew up in Cairo, Illinois. He left home at the age of nine because of an abusive father and hoboed his way to St. Louis, Missouri...

, Homesick James

Homesick James

Homesick James was an American blues musician. He most notably played slide guitar, and recorded covers of "Stones In My Passway" and "Homesick"...

, Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

, James Cotton

James Cotton

James Cotton is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who has performed and recorded with many of the great blues artists of his time as well as with his own band.-Career:...

, Jerry Portnoy

Jerry Portnoy

Jerry Portnoy is an American harmonica blues musician, who has toured with Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton.-Biography:Portnoy grew up in Chicago's Maxwell Street neighborhood where his family owned a store...

, Jimmy Johnson

Jimmy Johnson (musician)

Jimmy Johnson is an American a member of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section that was attached to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama for a period in the 1960s and 1970s, and later was the a founder of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio located at first on 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield, Alabama and at...

, Jimmy Rogers

Jimmy Rogers

Jimmy Rogers was an American Chicago blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player, best known for his work as a member of Muddy Waters' band of the 1950s.-Career:...

, John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

, Johnnie Taylor

Johnnie Taylor

Johnnie Harrison Taylor was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from rhythm and blues, soul, blues and gospel to pop, doo-wop and disco.-Early years:...

, Johnny Shines

Johnny Shines

Johnny Shines was an American blues singer and guitarist. According to the music journalist Tony Russell, "Shines was that rare being, a blues artist who overcame age and rustiness to make music that stood up beside the work of his youth...

, Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

, Junior Wells

Junior Wells

Junior Wells , born Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., was an American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist...

, Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

, Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor was an American Chicago blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues." She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings....

, Little Milton

Little Milton

James Milton Campbell, Jr. , better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It."-Biography:Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi...

, Little Willie Littlefield

Little Willie Littlefield

Little Willie Littlefield is an American R&B pianist and singer.-Career:By 1947, at the age of sixteen, Littlefield was already a local attraction on many of Houston's Dowling Street Clubs and was recording for local record shop proprietor Eddie Henry who ran his own label "Eddies".Influenced by...

, Lonnie Brooks

Lonnie Brooks

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

, 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. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...

, Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red is an African American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who has recorded more than 50 albums...

, Luther Allison

Luther Allison

Luther Allison was an American blues guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas and moved with his family, at age twelve, to Chicago in 1951. He taught himself guitar and began listening to blues extensively. Three years later he began hanging outside blues nightclubs with the hopes of being...

, Magic Slim

Magic Slim

Magic Slim is an American blues singer and guitarist.-Biography:Magic Slim was forced to give up playing the piano when he lost his little finger in a cotton gin mishap. He moved first to nearby Grenada. He first came to Chicago in 1955 with his friend and mentor Magic Sam...

, Matt Murphy

Matt Murphy (blues guitarist)

Matt "Guitar" Murphy is an American blues guitarist.-Life and career:Matt Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, United States, and was educated in Memphis, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel...

, Memphis Slim

Memphis Slim

Memphis Slim was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. A song he first cut in 1947, "Every Day I Have the Blues", has become a blues standard, recorded by many other...

, Mick Taylor

Mick Taylor

Michael Kevin "Mick" Taylor is an English musician, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and The Rolling Stones...

, The Neville Brothers

The Neville Brothers

The Neville Brothers, an American R&B and soul group, was formed in 1977 in New Orleans, Louisiana.-History:The group notion started in 1976, when the four brothers of the Neville family, Art , Charles , Aaron , and Cyril The Neville Brothers, an American R&B and soul group, was formed in 1977 in...

, Otis Rush

Otis Rush

Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...

, Pee Wee Crayton

Pee Wee Crayton

Connie Curtis Crayton , known as Pee Wee Crayton, was an American R&B and blues guitarist and singer.-Career:...

, Pinetop Perkins

Pinetop Perkins

Joseph William Perkins , known by the stage name Pinetop Perkins, was an American blues musician, specializing in piano music...

, Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

, Robert Cray Band, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Sam Lay

Sam Lay

Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...

, Snooky Pryor, Son Seals

Son Seals

Frank "Son" Seals was an American electric blues guitarist and singer.-Career:He was born in Osceola, Arkansas where his father, Jim "Son" Seals, owned a small juke joint. He began performing professionally by the age of 13, first as a drummer with Robert Nighthawk, and later as a guitarist...

, Lacy Gibson

Lacy Gibson

Lacy Gibson was an American Chicago blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He most notably recorded the songs, "My Love Is Real" and "Switchy Titchy", and in a long and varied career worked with Buddy Guy and Son Seals....

, Staple Singers, Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...

, Sugar Blue

Sugar Blue

Sugar Blue is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician, who plays the harmonica. He is probably best known for playing on The Rolling Stones' single, "Miss You"....

, Sunnyland Slim

Sunnyland Slim

Albert "Sunnyland Slim" Luandrew was an American blues pianist, who was born in the Mississippi Delta, and later moved to Chicago, Illinois, 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 uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...

, Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

, Lil' Ed Williams and the Blues Imperials

Lil' Ed Williams

Lil' Ed Williams is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. With his backing band, the Blues Imperials, slide guitarist Williams has built up a loyal following.-Biography:...

, and Johnny B. Moore

Johnny B. Moore

Johnny B. Moore is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a member of Koko Taylor's backing band in the mid 1970s, but has recorded nine solo albums since 1987...

.

Imagery

• http://www.jazzchicago.net/reviews/2009/BluesFest09.html 2009 Chicago Blues Fest Photo Gallery]
• http://www.jazzchicago.net/reviews/2008/BF.html 2008 Chicago Blues Fest Photo Gallery]
• 1984
• 2002
• 2003
• 2004
• 2005
• 2006