2012 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival Saturday Clubs Preview

Blues in the Clubs is the signature performance experience of the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival. On Friday, August 3 and Saturday, August 4 the artist faculty head to numerous venues in Port Townsend’s historic downtown and uptown districts to play.

Each venue features multiple acts and one Club Pass each night gets you full access to all clubs. (Don’t forget the the Blues “All Fest Package”.)

Purchase Blues Festival Club Passes and tickets.

SATURDAY CLUB HIGHLIGHTS (See end of post for Saturday night schedule)

We’ll have nearly two dozen artists in 7 clubs on Saturday night. But here are a few highlights:

At the American Legion, they’ll be dancing all night – and starting at 10:40pm, Festival Artistic Director Daryl Davis will lead an amazing linuep of musicians in a Jump Blues Dance. As a performer, Davis has worked with Elvis Presley’s Jordanaires, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Percy Sledge, and many others. He was the featured pianist on Cephas & Wiggins’ 1992 Grammy-nominated album, Flip Flop and Fly. In 1985, boogie-woogie pioneer Pinetop Perkins selected Davis to succeed him in the piano and vocal slot of the Muddy Waters Legendary Blues Band.

A new performer at the Boiler Room, Stalebread Scottie has been a linchpin of the New Orleans busking community for a number of years. Well-traveled and seldom in one place for long, he has played the street corners, bars and stages of countless towns in the States and abroad. Scottie’s resume isn’t exactly typical: Appeared at Brooklyn’s notorious Jalopy Theater. Flanked by burlesque beauties in Nashville. Shared the stage with T Model Ford in Clarksdale. His brand of blues is a blend of Country, Delta and Piedmont stylings, reflective of his roots in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina.

At Khu Larb Thai, guitar wizard Ari Eisinger brings his deft country blues and ragtime stylings to the clubs. Ari has toured across the US and performed in the UK and Japan, sharing the bill along the way with artists like Doc Watson, John Jackson, Dave Van Ronk, Paul Geremia and Taj Mahal. His interpretations of the songs of masters like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie and Reverend Gary Davis celebrate the styles of these pioneering guitar heroes, and are brought vibrantly back to life.

SATURDAY CLUB SCHEDULE

American Legion (all ages)

8pm-9pm: Crow Quill Night Owls
9:20pm-10:20pm: ZYDECO BLUES DANCE – Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, Mark Brooks, Arthur Migliazza, Jimmi Mayes, Phil Wiggins
10:40pm-12am (with 20 minute break): JUMP BLUES DANCE – Daryl Davis, Billy Flynn, Dean Mueller, Jimmi Mayes, Angela Hill

The Boiler Room (all ages/free venue)