Bobby Rush, Bettye LaVette, Ruthie Foster to Headline Chicago Blues Festival

  I  

Blues is a feeling, and it’ll be in ample supply June 7–9 as the Chicago Blues Festival returns for its 36th edition.

The free festival, which runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily and is spread across several stages at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, hosts countless performers tied to the genre, some touting tradition and others moving to personalize the music, incorporating soul, r&b and folk into their work. Headliners for the festival this year are singer Bobby Rush, vocalist Bettye LaVette and singer/guitarist Ruthie Foster. Find the schedule below.

June 7

—Charlie Musselwhite and Bill Boy Arnold

—The Jimmy Johnson Blues Band with Rico McFarland

—Bobby Rush

June 8

—Latimore

—Don Bryant

—Bettye LaVette

June 9

—Larkin Poe

—A tribute to the late Mike Ledbetter by guitarist Mike Welch

—Ruthie Foster

For additional information about the events, visit the City of Chicago homepage. DB



  • Zakir_Hussain_2011_Symphony_Center_copy.jpg

    “Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.

  • John_and_Gerald_Clayton_by_Paul_Wellman_copy.jpg

    Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.

  • KennedyCenter.jpg

    Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

  • Jernberg_Photo_Jon_Edergren_2_copy.jpg

    “With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.

  • Deerhead_Inn_courtesy_Poconogo.com_copy.jpg

    The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.


On Sale Now
February 2025
Sullivan Fortner
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad