The Chicago Blues Festival, June 6 – 9, is the largest free blues festival in the world and remains the largest of Chicago’s Music Festivals. During three days on five stages, more than 500,000 blues fans prove that Chicago is the “Blues Capital of the World.”
The headliners for the 30th Annual Chicago Blues Festival include: Shemekia Copeland, Bobby Rush, Irma Thomas, Jimmy Johnson, Otis Clay, The Bar-Kays, Eddie Floyd, Sir Mack Rice and a multigenerational Chicago blues showcase finale featuring James Cotton, Lil’ Ed and Billy Branch, among others, closing the festival on Sunday. Admission is free.
New this year, the festival will open for the first time at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on June 6, and move to Grant Park for the remainder of the weekend. The festival is “Rollin’ Up the River” to celebrate the blues with a musical journey up the Mississippi River. During the great migration from the south in the 1940s and 1950s, the “delta blues” landed in Chicago establishing the genre’s electric guitar sound known as the “Chicago blues” style. The voyage will start in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi on Friday; then continue on to Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday; ending in Chicago on Sunday, where the blues electrified the world.
Please call 312.744.3316 or visit www.chicagobluesfestival.us for more information.
Please note the following street closures will be in effect from June 5 to June 10 for the Blues Festival:
Jackson between Michigan and Lake Shore Drive Columbus between Congress and Monroe.
