Who Put the Blues Back in Bluesfest?

One of the main complaints in the last few years of Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest is that the festival organizers have lost touch with what it is supposed to be about. Nearly two decades old, the annual July festival has grown to be the largest blues music festival in Canada and the second largest in North America. Over that time, it has seen the likes of blues/soul juggernauts such as Smokey Robinson, The Allman Brothers Band, and Ben Harper and has gone decidedly mainstream in recent years with the likes of Kanye West, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Girl Talk. It is with the emergence of more pop/rock artists that complaints about the festival have seeded discontent. Some argue that many of these acts do not deserve to be at the festival; that it instead needs to go back to the original blues-only format from the mid- to late-1990s.

My beef is not that it has gotten too mainstream (it has, but the blues are really still there, people), but the fact that festival organizers tend to book the same acts year after year. I once joked that David Usher would come into town every time there was a major event in Ottawa (I think I managed to see him three or four times back in 2001, none at Bluesfest), but now that joke can be said about Blue Rodeo. Not only are they in Ottawa what honestly feels like eight times a year, but they have become a Bluesfest staple. Do not get me wrong, they are a great band, and they certainly draw in a good crowd, but do we really need to see them every single year at Bluesfest, especially when they tour so frequently on their own? Probably not. The same can be said of Metric. Fantastic Canadian band, and they have never let me down in a live show, but I'm pretty sure they've been here nearly every Bluesfest since 2006; necessary or overkill?

Erykah Badu

People were talking about the blues. And they were talking about it a lot. I have been raving about Erykah Badu in particular, who put on a show Saturday night that can only be described as beyond incredible. A true performer, and there was a rare energy in the crowd that night. Possibly one of the best Bluesfest experiences I have had.

Jazz has received quite a bit of attention in the last decade or so with the emergence of artists such as Michael Bublé and Diana Krall. The jazz genre has a huge following and manages to cater to a lot of musical palettes. Blues has that same power, and, with groups such as The Black Keys and so many others representing the genre in contemporary music, its renewed influence is going to be strong. Sure, Bluesfest may never be just about the blues again, but it may have just converted quite a few new fans to the genre this year.

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