Make a Joyful Noise

This year’s Pear Blossom Festival takes the Blues Area to a new level. Bob Smith Blues Area producer and director, who is himself a lead guitar player of a featured festival band (the local favorites The Jailtones), has brought together an impressive array of blues players. Thirteen bands will perform though out the weekend with blues standouts pianist / vocalist Judy Luis-Watson with the Blues Works, Lynwood Taylor, and the Legendary Robert Byrd heading the lineup.

This uniquely American cultural music developed from rich African rhythms, unique tonal structures and dissonances, and the profound need of the slave community to express sorrow, grief, and hope. In the last generation this musical heritage has been filtered through other cultural perspectives.

Blues, as we enter the new millennium, now reflects a wider more universal human experience. It draws on the old, rich blues traditions of the past while infusing the nuances of our own trials and triumphs.

The groups that Bob Smith has brought together reflect well both the old traditions and the new directions.

The Pear Blossom Festival is privileged to have these artists among us.

* All schedules subject to change without notice.

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Graphic by Maxfield Parrish, "Daybreak"

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