It has begun.
Booking for one of Salmon Arm’s most hotly anticipated music events is already underway.
Describing it as the many shades of blues, Roots and Blues Festival organizers introduce the first three of what they’re calling a stellar lineup for the 22nd annual event that runs Aug. 15 to 17.
Generating major buzz on radio lately, 2014 Maple Blues Award nominee (Best Acoustic Act) Little Miss Higgins struts and serenades her way, guitar in hand, lips blazoned red, onto any stage.
As if she just drove in off the back-road of another time with gravel dust and a sunset trailing behind her, this pocket-sized powerhouse plays music brewed up in old-time country blues sprinkled with a little jazz and maybe a hint of folk.
Whether it’s songs about passion or songs about panties, she writes about real things in a rooted and poetic way.
Also a 2014 Maple Blues Award nominee (Best Electric Act), Bill Durst has long been compared to the best guitar player/singer/entertainers anywhere in the world.
Durst has written and recorded more than 100 songs on 10 albums including seven charted Canadian radio hits.
After the early success of his band Thundermug in North America and Europe, Durst was acclaimed as one of the top songwriters in Canada. He has opened for Aerosmith, Rush, Bob Seger, The Yardbirds, Sly and The Family Stone, George Thorogood, Bad Company, Jeff Healey, Edgar Winter Group, The Tubes, David Clayton Thomas, Savoy Brown, Little Feat and has toured across North America and Europe.
Durst’s newest CD Hard and Heavy is garnering critical acclaim and climbing charts across the country.
Son of a civil rights lawyer and a fiddle player, Doc MacLean was playing harmonica and washboard in coffeehouses and festivals and appearing on radio and television variety shows by his early teens.
In 1972, he formed a duo with the now legendary Colin Linden, and became a frequent and popular opener for Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, Muddy Waters, and John Hammond.
After 30 plus years of spreading the Delta-blues gospel, MacLean now appears most often as a solo performer and is equally comfortable at a folk festival workshop, priming a rowdy blues festival crowd, or telling a story in a hushed theatre. The real deal, Doc MacLean is a national blues treasure.
“Roots & Blues remains one of the premiere festivals in B.C. with a reputation for consistently presenting one of the most eclectic of festival lineups in the country,” says marketing manager Scott Crocker, who recommends fans take advantage of early bird member pricing until Feb. 28. Visit www.rootsandblues.ca or call 250-833-6094.
