The Nothing But The Blues Festival kicked off yesterday,
in a new location. The Tri Lakes area of Bloomington
provided a scenic vista for one of Illinois' finest
music events. Producer Eric Tapley lined up an extraordinary
talent pool for this year, with Friday night featuring
Rooster Alley, Dona Oxford, John Primer and the Real
Deal Blues Band, and "The Guitar Women"
featuring Sue Foley, Debra Coleman, Roxanne Potvin.
As
with all fests, discovering a previously unknown talent
is always fun, and this event was no exception! A
prodigal talent, 12 year old Matt "Little Big
Man" Curry is a dynamo on guitar, joining the
Rooster Alley band - a long running Peoria based blues
quintet - for some great shomanship.
John Primer is admired by countless aspiring blues
artists, Another blues master who believed in John
Primer was none other than the "Hoochie Coochie
Man" himself, Muddy Waters. Muddy recruited John
not only as a guitarist, but also as an opening act!
Joining John was harp master Deak Harp. Deak is a
high-energy bluesman, and provided his accomplished
solos and fills to complete the show!
Headlining the evening was the Blues Caravan 2007
"The Guitar Women" featuring Sue Foley,
Debra Coleman, Roxanne Potvin. With
ten studio albums to her credit, Sue Foley (CAN) is
already a blues veteran. (USA) waited until her duties
as a parent were fulfilled before devoting herself
to music full-time in the mid-1990s. With six albums,
Deborah's earned 11 W.C. Handy Award nominations and
a reputation as "one of blues music's most exciting
young talents" (USA Today). The new kid on the
block is Roxanne Potvin (CAN) – an exciting
new talent from the French-speaking province of Quebec.
Potvin began playing guitar at 15 and released a self-produced
collection of original songs in 2003. The buzz that
CD created led to her breakout release The Way it
Feels, produced by Grammy-winner Colin Linden and
featuring the all-star support of Bruce Cockburn,
John Hiatt and Daniel Lanois.
Stay
tuned for Day 2, in
the meantime here's our gallery from Day 1 - Enjoy!! |
