Georgia Bluesfest 2010
When: Poker run registration, 8:30 a.m.; festival, 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Poker run begins at Moto 400, 108 Prominence Court, Dawsonville and ends at the festival ; festival at R-Ranch in the Mountains, 65 R Ranch Road, Dahlonega
How much: $50 per bike for poker run includes Bluesfest admission; $10 per extra rider (does not include admission); $40 for all-day admission to festival only
More info: info@georgiabluesfest.com
They’ll have the blues this Saturday in Dahlonega.
Georgia Bluesfest 2010, a music festival featuring local and regional bands and headliners Johnny Winter and James Cotton, will take place Saturday at R-Ranch in the Mountains.
The festival also will feature a poker run that will benefit the American Cancer Society, food, craft and music vendors and a guitar auction.
Bluesfest promoter Brian Bosarge of Dahlonega, who also owns Black Bear Music, a recording studio, said he expects 1,500 to 2,000 people to attend the event.
He said the festival will showcase blues styles ranging from the jazzy, Chicago-style Reverb-O-Rockets to performers that have more of an Eric Clapton-esque rock feel.
“I listened to a lot of bands trying to find people that I thought would be a good cross-section of the different types of blues,” said Bosarge, “because I didn’t want to have all the same thing during the course of this day. I wanted there to be a selection of something for everybody.”
At 9 p.m., Grammy-winners Winter and Cotton will take the stage, and concertgoers will get a chance to hear a couple of blues legends.
“Johnny Winter is one of the premier legendary blues guitarists in the blues business. He has been recording since before 1969. He has over 40 albums in his career,” Bosarge said.
“Johnny has just always been really popular with blues and rock fans, because of his style of Texas roadhouse blues, and a lot of people call that a rock-style blues,” he said.
A guitar signed by Winter also will be auctioned off at the event to benefit the American Cancer Society.
Bosarge said Cotton, known as James “Superharp” Cotton to many, was the first harmonica player to use a microphone with the instrument.
“He’s probably the harmonica player that players of today look to as their inspiration,” he said.
According to Bosarge, Cotton used to put on a pretty crazy show.
“He’s been known in the past to stand on his head and play his harmonica and blow on it until it went to pieces,” he said, adding that Cotton, 76, tends to play upright these days.
Bosarge said he took on the task of organizing Georgia Bluesfest to bring more attention to the genre.
“I felt like the blues were being ignored, and this is an opportunity to bring it to the public,” he said, “and to offer them such a variety of music that they get to see all different facets of the blues.”