NORWICH – This week, the Chenango Blues Association revealed an impressive list of acts committed to central New York's best kept live music secret – the 24th annual Chenango Blues Fest.
For this year, the hole-in-the-wall festival built by blues fans for blues fans slated for the weekend of August 19 & 20 rounds up a laundry list of blues, and blues-inspired jazz, zydeco and gospel legends — as well as some up-and-comers — to the Chenango County Fairgrounds and beyond.
What's always been remarkable about the Chenango Blues Fest is its wrangling of unmistakable value-for-talent ratio versus the approachable “back yard” feel of the event.
The festival regularly captures diehard audiences in excess of 4,000 or more traveling from all points of the U.S. From as far away as Texarkana and the midwest.
Past talent the likes of Charlie Musselwhite, Guitar Shorty, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Koko Taylor, Duke Robillard, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Shemekia Copeland, Robert Randolph and the North Mississippi Allstars are proof of the event's dedication to providing internationally declaimed acts at a price anyone can afford.
This year, the Blues Committee — tasked with harvesting the current cream of the crop — again succeeded in avoiding a whitewash with its 2016 lineup, offering one of the more diverse schedules in blues music's summertime festival circuit.
From the ever popular upbeat Minnesota vintage-swing sounds of Davina and the Vagabonds as a Friday-night headliner to 1969 Woodstock throwbacks Canned Heat aboard the Saturday Main Stage, 2016's incarnation is definitely going to have the way-back machines firing on all eight cylinders, only raising the yardstick for 2017. (no pressure)
But for now, here's a detailed look at the 2016 lineup:
Friday, August 19, 2016
Frontier Communications - Free Friday night show
• 6:00 - 6:45 p.m. - Funky Blu Roots
• 7:15 - 8:30 p.m. - Laurence Jones
• 9:00 - 10:30 p.m. - Davina and the Vagabonds
