The Waterfront Blues Festival is an annual event in Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 featuring three to five days of performances by 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. The festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 started in 1988 and takes place in Tom McCall Waterfront Park

Tom McCall Waterfront Park

Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park is a park located on the west bank of the Willamette River in downtown Portland, Oregon. It is , comprising 16 tax lots owned by the City of Portland....

, along the west bank of the Willamette River

Willamette River

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...

 in downtown Portland

Downtown Portland

Downtown Portland, the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States, is located on the west bank of the Willamette River. It is in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and is where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found....

. It is the largest blues festival on the West Coast

West Coast of the United States

West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...

 and the second-largest blues festival in the nation, with recent events attracting 120,000 blues fans from throughout the world with more than 150 performances on four stages. The festival benefits the Oregon Food Bank, a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 which provides food to low-income persons in Oregon and SW Washington states.

History

The festival began in 1987 as the Rose City Blues Festival, sponsored by the Cascade Blues Association, to benefit the Burnside Community Council's projects for the homeless. The FM

FM broadcasting

FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...

 community radio station

Community radio

Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...

 KBOO

KBOO

KBOO is a non-profit organization, listener-funded FM Community radio station broadcasting from Portland, Oregon. The station's mission is to serve groups in its listening area who are underrepresented on other local radio stations and to provide access to the airwaves for people who have...

 has broadcast performances from the event, throughout the festival's history. The following year, Oregon Food Share (predecessor of the Oregon Food Bank) becomes the beneficiary of the Rose City Blues Festival, making the event Oregon's first annual blues festival to benefit the hungry. In 1991, the name was changed to the Waterfront Blues Festival.

The festival celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2007, earning the Rose City Award from the Portland Oregon Visitors Association and an official U.S. Post Office

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

 postmark

Postmark

thumb|USS TexasA postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service...

 commemorating the festival. Sponsors of the festival have included Miller Genuine Draft

Miller Brewing Company

The Miller Brewing Company is an American beer brewing company owned by the United Kingdom-based SABMiller. Its regional headquarters are located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the company has brewing facilities in Albany, Georgia; Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; Eden, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas;...

, Albertsons, and Safeway

Safeway Inc.

Safeway Inc. , a Fortune 500 company, is North America's second largest supermarket chain after The Kroger Co., with, as of December 2010, 1,694 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern...

. Throughout its history, the festival has raised millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands pounds of food.

External links

• Waterfront Blues Festival (official website)
• Location: 45.516°N 122.6726°W