In its prime, the Monterey Bay Blues Festival’s weekend-long affair flooded the Monterey County Fairgrounds’ main stage arena with headlining acts like Etta James, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal and the late great blues monarch B.B. King.
Even the smaller grounds stages peppering the Fairgrounds boasted greatness, like San Francisco ’60s psych-rockers Canned Heat and Monterey County’s own mountain of local blues talent, including Alligator and Red Beans & Rice.
As quick and sudden as the Blues Fest folded in 2012 after a 27-year run, it’s been reincarnated as the Monterey International Blues Festival by the Salvation Army and Guitars Not Guns.
In its first year, the collective behind the event is starting off at a mellow rate with hopes to build upon a solid foundation. The half-day gathering, confined to the Garden Stage at the Fairgrounds on Saturday, is great news for this year’s headliner and longtime performer at the former Monterey Blues Fest Charlie Musselwhite. He performed in the final year of the earlier incarnation of the festival.
“It was such a wonderful festival that went on for so long,” Musselwhite says. “It was a shock that it just ended one year.”
Musselwhite has returned to the Peninsula to perform several times since and says he always enjoys reflecting on the amazing years he spent jamming up on the main stage arena at the original Monterey Bay Blues Festival. In 2003, Musselwhite was awarded the Monterey Bay Blues Festival Artist of the Year. While the award and all the performances were highlights, Musselwhite says one of the high points came when he was in the audience.
“I was watching B.B. on the main stage – I forget exactly what he said – but he mentioned me to the audience,” Musselwhite says. “I thought, ‘Awww, that’s so nice.’ He was always a good friend and I still miss him just like everybody does.”
Musselwhite and King met in 1968 and toured together a couple times in both the U.S. and in Europe. King regularly called Musselwhite out onto the stage to sit in with him and his band on harp.
“There were no surprises with B.B.,” Musselwhite says. “He was a real gentleman and always had time for everybody. He never had a hard word to say about anybody. He was really an example for me as a human being.”
Last year, Musselwhite celebrated the 50th anniversary of his full-length debut, Stand Back!, a must-have for all blues fans. For the bluesman, the record represents something much more dynamic than a classic debut. Musselwhite had already been performing before the record was released, but Stand Back! made it official.
“[Stand Back!] gave me a career; it put me on the road,” Musselwhite says. “I always have to mention [Stand Back!] when people ask me what my favorite record is.”
Meanwhile, Musselwhite’s recent musical chapter involves a strong collaboration with Ben Harper, who’s younger and much more mainstream. But the pair seems to share a similar wavelength and recently finished recording their second album together, expected to be released sometime next year.
Their debut collaboration Get Up!, a tasty blend of old-school vintage blues and modern-flavored indie rock wrapped in a cool blanket of funk and R&B rhythm, scored a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Blues Album.
“When I first went down to record with [Harper’s backing band the Relentless 7], I didn’t know anybody but Ben,” Musselwhite says.
And building a personal relationship, he adds, contributed musically to their success: “After spending a couple years on the road together, we tightened up,” Musselwhite says. “By the time we went back to the studio to make a second album, we had a really great rapport, so we play really well together. We felt we played so much better in the studio this time around because we knew each other better.”
The material is a mix of songs the pair wrote together, some Harper wrote on his own and others that evolved in the studio.
“It’s just got a real good feel to it,” Musselwhite promises of the album.
Something else that has a good feel to it: the rest of the Blues Fest lineup. Performers include guitar master Mighty Mike Schermer, longtime vocalist Ms. Taylor P. Collins, local legend John “Broadway” Tucker, the Guitars Not Guns Proteges and the debut of the Monterey Blues Revue: A Collaboration of the Area’s Best Blues Musicians, featuring Lee Durley, Amy Treadwell, Minor Williams, Stu Heydon and Jessica La Jeaune. Red Beans & Rice will be the backing band.
Ken Lopez, Amy Threadwell, Steve Vagnini, Lee Durley and John Laughton are among the folks who came together to get this new Blues Fest going, fueled by the mission “to preserve the Blues, a great American music tradition, by introducing festival attendees to all of its colors, shapes and forms, with the goal of increasing appreciation and thereby creating a new, expanded audience.
“For the blues.”
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