The selection of the Doobie Brothers as this year’s Santa Cruz Blues Festival headliner is an inspired choice, both because of the band’s deep connections to Santa Cruz and because they’re in their fifth decade of commercializing a sound that’s rooted in the blues and American roots music. Ahead of his appearance on the BluesFest stage, guitarist Pat Simmons reminisces about surfing, playing music with Tom Scribner on Pacific Avenue and living on Vine Hill Road.
Posts Tagged: Santa Cruz Blues Festival 2012
BluesFest 20 Trivia
See if you can’t build a beer game around these Santa Cruz Blues Festival fun facts.
The Making of A Blues Festival
For the festival’s co-founder Bill Welch, putting together the line-up each year is part alchemy and part music science. He’s always loved booking acts at the festival who have some kind of history together, whether the audience is aware of it or not. “We try to book a headliner, and then complement it with some stuff that works well, and then some things that are going to make it really interesting. That’s kind of a wacky theme I’ve had over the years,” he says.
The Santa Cruz Blues Festival’s Top 20 Moments
I’ll never forget what it felt like to be backstage just before Ray Charles took the stage at the Santa Cruz Blues Festival in 2003. There was a crackling electricity in the air as the man himself stood waiting to be called up to play just a few feet from me. He was bobbing to the music and smiling his famous broad smile, but even so he couldn’t hide his intensity. His chin was slightly raised and his head cocked a little to one side—he was listening. Surveying. No matter how many thousands of times he had done this, no matter that he had to lean hard on his other senses to compensate for his lack of sight, he was not going to let a single detail about what was going on around him escape his attention. Whatever he was measuring—the mood of the crowd, the tightness of the band, the distance up the stairs—he seemed to lock it in just as his name was called, taking the stage to thunderous applause with the confidence of a musical legend.
Doobie Brothers, Joan Osborne at BluesFest
The Santa Cruz Blues Festival celebrates its 20th year this Memorial Day weekend with an eclectic lineup. Tickets go on sale at www.santacruzbluesfestival.org starting Feb. 29
