Thu 3/6 @ 6PM
Fri 3/7 @ 8PM
Sat 3/8 @ 8PM
Sun 3/9 @ 11:30AM
For four days over a long weekend, the Treelawn in the Waterloo Arts District will host the Women of the Blues Festival, paying tribute to both local blues artists and women who have deep familial ties to the blues.
It starts with a kickoff party on Thursday with Sisters in Song, featuring three well-known Northeast Ohio women musicians whose music, while not precisely blues, is blues adjacent: Powerful belter Becky Boyd, blues rocker guitarist/vocalist Kristine Jackson, and keyboard player/vocalist Rachel Brown, whose music also draws on jazz and country. Cinema Talk will also play, and the event will feature speakers, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg, Christine and Lynn Orman Weiss. The event is billed as “private,” but if you buy a weekend pass, you’re in!
Friday’s showcase is headlined by Carlise Guy and the Nu Blu Band, playing “funky soul dance music from the south side of Chicago) with Christine and her band Justice opening. Guy is the daughter of Chicago blues guitar legend Buddy Guy, still alive and kicking at age 88. Her band also includes her brother, Greg Guy, and lead guitarist Marcil Maddox.
On Saturday vocalist Lynne Jordan will perform a tribute to Nina Simone (1933-2003), the powerful musician and civil rights activist whose musical influences included classical, jazz, folk, soul, gospel, blues and pop. She was noted for tunes such as “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” and her blunt response to those opposing civil rights, “Mississippi Goddam.”
On Sunday, the Daughters of Blues Legends brunch features Tommy Tucker’s daughter Teeny Tucker, Little Walter’s daughter Marion Diaz and Wllie Dixon’s granddaughter Tomiko Dixon. The event includes an awards presentation a workshop from 1-2pm called “From the Gospel to the Blues: Sister Rosetta Tharp to Mahalia Jackson & Koko Taylor” and a set of music by Tucker at 2pm.
Get tickets here.