The fourth annual St. Louis Bluesweek Festival takes place Friday, May 24 – Sunday, May 26 at Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis.
The headliners include Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Mavis Staples and Big George Brock, however, the Festival will highlight several artists with significant ties to St. Louis including Marquis Knox and Rich McDonough & Rough Groves.
Host Steve Potter talked with Sharon Foehner, a musician with Rough Grooves, Dave Beardsley, the Publisher of stlblues.net and co-founder of the National Blues Museum, which is scheduled to open in Fall 2014, and Jeremy Segel-Moss, a member of the Bottoms Up Blues Gang and Vice-Chair of the St. Louis Blues Society.
“A lot of places are a home of the blues,” said Beardsley. “St. Louis is a home to the blues even back to ragtime in the late 1880s and early 1990s, we were a ragtime town and when W.C. Handy lived here in 1892, we influenced the ‘father of the blues’ when he composed St. Louis Blues. He called it a ragtime composition.”
Beginning this year the St. Louis Bluesweek Festival will also feature a BBQ Battle Royale, in which thirty teams will battle to determine who has the best barbecue in St. Louis.
The event is free and open to the public.
Event Information:
St. Louis Bluesweek Festival
Friday, May 24, 2013, 5:30 - 11:00 p.m.
May 25 - 26, 2013, Noon - 11:00 p.m.
Location: Soldiers Memorial, 1315 Chestnut Street
Follow St. Louis Public Radio on Twitter - @stlpublicradio
