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" For the first time, the Beale Street Music Festival is featuring a Memphis Stage. "
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By Norm Shaw
Fans of the blues and Memphis music are well taken care of at this year's Beale Street Music Festival, May 3-5 at Tom Lee Park on the Mississippi River. This year's lineup is one of the strongest in years, featuring a nice mix of old and new, with healthy doses of local talent thrown in each day. And despite rumors to the contrary, the blues are well-represented and offer major players on each day. Daily tickets to the Beale Street Music Festival are $13 in advance, with a three-day pass costing $30. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster or by calling (901) 525-1515. For the first time, the Beale Street Music Festival is featuring a Memphis Stage, which will include performances by Alex Chilton, Big Ass Truck, the River Bluff Clan, the Cadillac Cowgirl, Keith Sykes, Straight Up Buzz, Herman Green and the Green Machine and many more. Another first is a gospel stage, which will offer performances by the Blind Boys of Alabama and O'Landa Draper & the Associates. Schedules of times were not available at press time. However, days have been assigned. Saturday and Sunday are the best days for an all-day blues experience, but Friday night cannot be missed because of an appearance by Luther Allison. Allison will be staying over after appearing the night before at the W.C. Handy Awards, where he is the lead nominee (see story on Page 6). Other blues bands on note on Friday include Coco Montoya, Otis Rush and R.L. Burnside. Friday also includes performances by local hero Todd Snider, who will be debuting material from his upcoming record, and a return engagement by Joan Baez, who played the festival two years ago. We also strongly recommend checking out Michelle Shocked. Her last show in Memphis almost two years ago is still being talked about by those who attended. Saturday's lineup offers several can't-miss bands. For the second day of the festival, we recommend: Austin, Texas, bluesman Doyle Bramhall, will be performing with the Memphis Horns; John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, who continue to produce outstanding British blues; Shirley Brown and Carey Bell, two of the longtime greats among female blues singers; and the evening's headliners, the Allman Brothers Band. BlueSpeak favorite Dave Thompson also gets our highest recommendation for Saturday. If you have never seen Thompson live, you should. He is one of the best young blues players on the scene today. To put a little funk in your Saturday, be sure to check out George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, featuring Parliament/Funkadelic. Clinton's unique brand of stage madness should have people dancing in the dirt throughout his performance. Sunday offers several more BlueSpeak favorites, most notably Big Mike Griffin and Marcia Ball. Griffin - all 6 foot, 10 inches and 375 pounds of him - is more than a mere novelty act. His Nashville-based blues band is road ready after touring most of the past year. Ball, who combines Texas blues with New Orleans jazz, has been a festival favorite for several years. She will be coming in fresh from the New Orleans Jazz Fest, as will many other performers. Other Sunday standouts include: blues legend Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown; Mississippi bluesman Robert Jr. Lockwood; the Duke Robillard Band, which recently performed on Beale at B.B. King's Blues Club; and the evenings headliner, Van Morrison, who will be making one of only four appearances of his U.S. tour at the festival. Bands were continuing to be added the first week in April, so the lineup is completely set. For last-minute information on the Beale Street Music Festival, check out the Memphis Mojo site on the World Wide Web. The site is at http://www.memphismojo.com. Hourly schedules will be put on the site as soon as they become available.
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