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River City Blues Festival returns to Marietta for 30th year

By Clara Noelle 3 min read

MARIETTA -- Many of the hundreds of people who gathered Friday and Saturday at the Lafayette Hotel for the 30th River City Blues Festival have been coming to the Marietta event for years.

A number of the artists on the bill for the anniversary show were making return trips as well.

"We brought back acts this year that were crowd favorites in the past," said Jay Phillips, president of the board for the Blues, Jazz and Folk Music Society of the Mid-Ohio Valley, which organizes the festival.

A return engagement by duo Paul Rishell and Annie Raines was hit with attendees Saturday afternoon.

"Thanks for bringing them in," one man said as he stopped to speak to Phillips. "They are terrific."

Raines said it was the third time in her and Rishell's 30 years of making music together that they've performed in Marietta.

"We would like to thank Marietta for always welcoming us," she said. "Festivals are really the cream of the crop. People really love us and the blues here."

The event began Friday with a free performance by the High Schools That Rock group before Doug MacLeod took the Lafayette stage, followed by The Nighthawks. Phillips said more than 200 people attended Friday, with a crowd approaching 300 Saturday afternoon and more than 325 in the evening for the Ghost Town Blues Band and headliner John Primer & the Real Deal Blues Band.

When asked what draws people to the event, Phillips pointed to "a love of the blues and the love of good music, and especially live music."

It helps that the Lafayette ballroom provides an intimate setting.

"There's not a bad seat in the house," he said.

But there is a dance floor, and Charleston resident Charlee Tidrick and daughter Sadie Louis-Rosenberg were making full use of it as Tidrick's former bandmates in the Jake Leg Stompers performed Saturday.

"We came up to see them since it was so close," Tidrick said.

Parkersburg resident Kezia Parsons was in the audience, as she has been for about 20 years. She said she appreciates the chance to not only see and hear the artists but interact with them after they perform.

"You get to meet them and be one-on-one with them," Parsons said.

Reggie Robinson of Athens has been coming to the festival for more than 15 years and appreciates the quality of performers the society books.

"A lot of these acts, you wouldn't be able to see in southeast Ohio," he said. "It's hard to find blues. It's an art form that is not popularly appreciated."

Robinson said he's impressed by the variety of blues styles in the lineup each year.

"In one weekend, you can travel the whole kind of breadth of the blues," he said. "They really just knock it out of the park."

Staff reporter Clara Noelle contributed to this story.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.

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