It is this time of year when some of the spring blues festivals begin to announce their line-ups. It is also the time for blues fans to express their concerns over blues music being pushed further and further from these events by promoters who are simply trying to get as many people in the gate as possible. This happened this past month as 75% of the lineup was announced for the 2014 Simi Valley Cajun and Blues Festival in Southern California.

Over the last four years the founder and president of Delta Groove Music, Randy Chortkoff, had built an audience that was attracted to one of the last true blues festival on the west coast. He brought in artists from all over the country. Many of these were stars on his impressive roster of talent as well as “nationals” on other major blues labels. BLUES JUNCTION Productions was proud to participate in this event. It was a joy to review these shows. I was also very proud to have our team of photographers share their talent with our audience. It was a real joy meeting many of our loyal readers who came from all parts of the country, and the world for that matter, to enjoy the increasingly rare experience that is attending a blues festival that actually had blues music. By Sunday afternoon of last year’s festival, the writing was already on the wall and one of the last real blues festivals in the west was gone.  

Well established talent buyers from the rock world came in to book the blues stage at this year’s festival and the results are predictable.

Blues festival promoters use the word “blues” simply to attract the attention of a certain age demographic. This age demographic represents the largest generation of Americans in our nation’s history, baby boomers. This generation has always dictated popular taste in everything including, of course, music. For 95% of Americans, music represents nostalgia and nothing more.  If you wonder why you see 60's and early 70's era rock acts on blues festival line ups, this is the reason. Bands like this get paid big bucks to satiate the apparently powerful tug that nostalgia brings to most people. More contemporary “blues” acts that sound more like classic rock bands fill out these line-ups. Then old timers can tell their colleagues at work that they attended a blues festival over the weekend and not a rock festival. It sounds more mature, refined and sophisticated. Believe me...these types of shows are anything but...

Blues music is like many things in life. It is an acquired taste. It is for a slightly more mature aural palette.  Many of us have moved on from enjoying spaghetti that comes out of a can and onto that faire served at a fine Italian Restaurant. It is called growing up. If you went to an expensive Italian restaurant and ordered a spaghetti dish and the chef then opened a can of Spaghetti-Os and poured it into a bowl, stuck it in the microwave and served it with a glass of milk, that would work just fine by me...fifty years ago. It doesn’t work for me here in 2014. Yet, when you plop down your hard earned money to go to a blues festival, you now get classic rock bands that have been around for fifty years. You might have enjoyed some of these acts as a kid, but hopefully you have outgrown them. Heck, I have also outgrown my pants. Maybe I should stop thinking about spaghetti.

The problem also lies in the fact that festival promoters and talent buyers have, for the most part, taken a short term approach to their booking decisions and never have they looked at their festivals beyond a particular year. In other words, years ago they had the chance to develop headliners; put heretofore lesser known talent in front of audiences and gauge their reaction. Let the audience grow alongside emerging talent. Let them feel vested in these various acts. I suppose the historical metaphor would be the dust bowl. By plowing the same field and not rotating crops...well you get what I am saying here.

Promoters have unwittingly pinned themselves in a corner and watched, as we all have, as one headline level, blues “legacy” type of performer passed away after another. Where is the next generation of talented, entertaining blues acts? They have been waiting by the phone for years. Now it is practically too late. In desperation to ensure a successful gate, promoters are forced to book the tried and true classic rock bands and guitar shredders posing as blues men that appeal to the ever expanding lowest common denominator crowd. When you think about it, why wouldn’t the dumbing down of America apply to blues festivals?

My biggest surprise is that they still have what is called blues festivals at all. Mark my words they will stop calling then blues festivals very soon and rename these events Roots Music Festivals or something along those lines. For the vast minority of us who happen to like blues music, then we will be grateful when they have a blues act on the bill.

The upside is that festival promoters will get blues lovers off their backs.  Jeffrey Newbie of the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise who puts on the Simi Valley Cajun and Blues Festival referred to the concerns of blues music fans on a Facebook comment as, “sad” and went on to ask the question, “...why don’t you spend a measly $22 for a full day’s worth of entertainment?” He concluded his remarks by stating, “By the way, we are already inundated with media requests to cover the event so there are people out there who do like the lineup.”

Wow, what a shocker, more people like classic rock than blues music. Who knew? This speaks directly to my point. The promoter doesn’t understand the blues audience. This is a small, but mighty worldwide contingent of people who will travel anywhere to experience this ever increasingly rare commodity that is live blues music. They come from all over the world and spend thousands of dollars for a weekend to attend festivals like the ones put on over the last four years in Simi Valley.

As I mentioned in the article I wrote last year, entitled A Memorial Day Tradition (see archives) the Rotary Club of Sunrise Simi does a marvelous job in putting on this family oriented event. Let’s just hope they provide ear plugs for the kiddies.

So what do discerning blues fans do? We should have enough chutzpah to not patronize these old hippie fests. Can we see what happens if we vote en masse? How many of us are out there?

I can tell you with a great deal of certitude that there are more of us then you think. As I write this missive, that other blues world is at the IBCs or on the Blues Cruise. The enormous NAMM trade show and convention is going on and while I am a fully credentialed member of the media, I can only handle one, maybe two days of that circus and today just isn’t one of them. Yet despite these distractions, BLUES JUNCTION’S readership is going through the roof this week. Blues fans, you are not alone.

There are lots of you out there who love the real deal. May I suggest you take a tiny percentage of the money you will save by not going to Simi Valley this year and purchase a few blues CDs. Lay in a hammock and listen to them on Memorial Day Weekend. You will be reminded why we fell in love with this music in the first place.

Maybe we can all find a place to congregate and listen to blues music on Memorial Day weekend. Heck for a fraction of the talent budget of the Simi Valley event, we can throw an actual blues festival that has blues music. Sounds crazy, I know, I think Long Beach, California’s Rainbow Lagoon would be a great location. Just a thought... 

I think there are enough of us to make a difference, but let's remember more people eat junk food than organic food. As blues fans, this is something we live with and think about every day. We ask ourselves, ‘Why do so many people not hear what we hear?’ For me the question is, ‘Why do people who don’t hear what we hear insist on using this illusionary art form to forward their own social, political and commercial agendas, then  act surprised when we voice our concerns?’     

Never forget that we hear something in this music that the average person does not. They resent us for it and at times can be downright hurtful towards those of us who have decoded the wonderful mystery that lies at the heart of this music. For those who don’t hear it, blues will always be thought of as primitive, simple music that’s primary function is to serve as a template for classic-rock riffs.

Going to this year’s Simi Valley Cajun and Blues Festival would be like walking into a fine Italian Restaurant and ordering Spaghetti- O’s. I’ll pass. I am sure someone will point out that this line up is better than nothing. To that I say, blues music is not “nothing,” it really is something and that’s what I will be listening to on Memorial Day weekend. I just don’t know where yet. I do know you won’t see me in Simi Valley, California. 

- David Mac