They’ll Sing the Blues at the Seashore

Before blues festivals began appearing in Southern California like dandelions in summer, there was the Long Beach Blues Festival, born 13 years ago out of a KLON radio show called “Nothin’ but the Blues.”

About 600 people turned out for the first festival in Veteran’s Stadium to hear Pee Wee Crayton, Big Joe Turner and Blind Joe Hill. Later it moved to Cal State Long Beach. This year, 30,000 are expected for the new and improved festival Saturday and Sunday at a new location: Long Beach’s Shoreline Aquatic Park.

The definition of blues is loosening a little this year too. Chuck Berry and James Brown will join traditional blues masters Joe Louis Walker, Honeyboy Edwards, Etta James and Snooky Pryor.

“It’s good to showcase a couple of blues-influenced artists who have stretched blues into another idiom,” said Ken Poston, the concert’s producer. Brown and Berry took blues and “went off into different directions,” Poston said.

A diversified lineup also helps distinguish the Long Beach festival, one of Southern California’s oldest, from the myriad others being staged annually, Poston said.

“James Brown and Chuck Berry draw people who wouldn’t usually come out,” he said. “And that gets people more interested in the blues.”

The number of blues festivals has exploded in the last 13 years, Poston said, primarily because blues music is so close to other popular forms of music.

“A lot of rock guitarists cite blues musicians as their greatest influence,” Poston said. From that, “people began realizing that blues has a very important influence on other forms of music.”

Unlike in other years, the music will continue until 9 p.m., Poston said. He also anticipates cooler weather because the park is on the ocean. Concert-goers may still picnic on the lawn, but bleacher seating will be available for the first time.

The ambience will stay the same as when the concert was held at Cal State Long Beach, Poston said.

Emotion is what draws people to the blues, Poston said. “It’s not all sad music, though. Emotion can be carried out with the rhythms or the lyrics or the artists’ pure display of what they feel. It’s music from the heart. That’s still the root of it.”

On Saturday and Sunday, gates will open at 10 a.m.. Music will start at 2 p.m. and stop about 9 p.m. Saturday’s artists will play in the following order: Popa Chubby band, winners of the festival’s National Blues Talent Search; Honeyboy Edwards; Joe Louis Walker and the Boss Talkers; Irma Thomas, and Chuck Berry.

On Sunday, the lineup will be: the gospel-influenced Mighty Clouds of Joy; Sunnyland Slim; Snookie Pryor and John Nicholas; Etta James and the Roots Band, and James Brown.

Shoreline Aquatic Park is on West Shoreline Drive at Pine Avenue in Long Beach. Tickets cost $25 in advance, $30 at the door. To buy tickets during the day, call (310) 985-5566; evenings or weekends, call (310) 597-9911. Tickets also are sold through Ticketmaster. For more information, call KLON at (310) 985-5566.