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Forget blue Monday; the Tampa Bay Blues Festival will be around for the entire weekend. It's bigger and better than ever - and it's right here at home.
By GINA VIVINETTO
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001
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Blues in the night . . .
When Marcia Ball's piano gets in the mood indigo, an audience should still expect to shake a leg.
The Tampa Bay Blues Festival: Preview
The Tampa Bay Blues Festival, Friday through Sunday at Vinoy Park, on the waterfront in downtown St. Petersburg. Tickets at the gate are $20 for Friday, $25 for Saturday, $20 for Sunday.
Jeff Healey
For Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey, the blues is a happening thing, always open to new influences and transforming itself into fantastic, innovative shapes.
Los Lobos
For Los Lobos, finding the band's voice involved going back to its heritage, then expanding the sound with more recent influences.
Who's who at the festival
Jonny Lang |
From the Louisiana bayou, to the Delta, through the Windy City and back: This year's Tampa Bay Blues Festival offers all those influences and more. Roots rock, blues -- both traditional and electric -- hot young players, seasoned old-timers, it's all at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg this weekend.
"There are blues festivals around the country which don't have in an entire weekend what we have just on Saturday," says organizer and president Chuck Ross. The festival, which Ross started as a grass-roots project eight years ago, is now one of the nation's best, attracting blues lovers from around the country and overseas.
"We had our first ticket purchase from Russia this year," Ross says. Last year's festival drew more than 30,000 people.
This year's lineup is particularly strong, including Los Lobos, Jonny Lang, the Jeff Healy Band, Marcia Ball and Walter Trout. The Jimi Hendrix mobile museum will make a pit stop, featuring the guitarist's instruments, clothing and other memorabilia.
The secret to the festival's success? Ross says he and everyone behind Blues Fest, which donates some proceeds to charities including the Pinellas Association for Retarded Citizens, Bayfront Medical Foundation and the Sam Robinson Scholarship Fund, is passionate about quality, and about the music.
"We're in love with what we're doing."
Back to Weekend
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