30 international blues delicacies including Devon Allman, Jana Koubková’s 80th birthday celebration and an improved second heated stage tent

The House of Culture will offer two equal stages this year thanks to the enlargement and improvement of the heated tent at the courtyard. The lobby will feature a new rest area with more seating. In addition to the traditional Monastery Church, concerts will take place for the first time in the Perk Hotel. As every year, the festival will offer a rich accompanying programme – night jam sessions, music documentary film screening, masterclasses for active musicians and listening programmes by leading Czech publicists.

As far as the performing artists are concerned, we have once again managed to put together a very well cast festival. Genre-wise, we’ve branched out a bit more this year. In addition to classic blues guitar musicians like the multi-award winning Albert Castiglia or the more acoustic Eric Bibb, there are significant genre crossovers. For example, as with Chuck Prophet into an Americana style that brings together the best of blues, rock and country traditions, or as with The Courettes into garage rock. We’re still a blues festival, but we’re trying to open up new horizons for our visitors. Headliners include renowned guitarist and singer Devon Allman, a member of one of the most famous musical families, son of Gregg Allman and nephew of Duane Allman, founders of the legendary Southern band The Allman Brothers Band, as well as an American blues singer-songwriter, Blues Music Awards winner and three Grammy nominations Eric Bibb, brilliant Miami guitarist and 2023 Blues Rock Artist of the Year Albert Castiglia, American singer and guitarist Duwayne Burnside, one of the fourteen children of legendary hill country blues exponent R. L. Burnside, prominent American rock singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet, the explosive Danish-Brazilian duo The Courettes, and two groups representing Chicago blues and the local famous festival – Chicago Blues Festival feat. Stephen Hull & Dave Herrero & Sheryl Youngblood and Legends of Chicago Blues feat. Oscar Wilson, Jimi Primetime Smith & Bob Corritore.

Other international acts include Dan Auerbach’s discovery, Alabama singer-songwriter Early James, who mixes elements of blues, folk, rock and classic country, as well as the duo Hugo Race and Michelangelo Russo, the exceptional Italian lap steel guitarist Marco Bartoccioni, who puts on an explosive show between blues, southern rock and soul, and American guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Luke Winslow King, who mixes delta blues with elements of folk, gospel and jazz. In addition, he will be joined at the House of Culture by the phenomenal Tuscan resophonic slide guitarist Roberto Luti. Also playing in Šumperk will be the Scottish slide guitarist Dave Arcari, who will bring his mixture of wild delta blues, punk, trash country and rockabilly, and the band Three for Silver with frontman Lucas Warford, whose voice is not unlike Tom Waits, spreading fun and music without boundaries. Also coming will be the winners of the Blues Aperitiv search competition, Slovakian Kiero Grande, Polish Robert Kordylewski Trio and Serbian The Bad Week, the winners of the European Blues Challenge – Dutch acoustic trio Robbert Duijf Band, or Austrian guitarist and singer Jörg Danielsen and American guitarist Ben Prevo.

Jana Koubková, one of the absolute stars of Czech music regardless of genre, celebrates her 80th birthday this October. That is why the Blues Alive dramaturgy decided to organize a birthday celebration for this great lady during the Saturday thematic concert. In addition to the brilliant Jana Koubková Quartet, the birthday girl will sing with three of her longtime friends and colleagues, pianist Martin Kratochvil, guitarist Tony Ackerman and saxophonist Joe Kucera, with whom she recorded the album Znění a dreaming. This program will be performed live for the first time ever. Other Czech names to be heard include Mirek Kemel and his trio, Prague power trio Cold Licks, led by artist Jonáš Ledecký, and the quartet Readymade Backsliders.

The festival program will also include a nightly jam sessions, a screening of the award-winning documentary And This Is Free at the Oko Cinema about the history of Chicago’s legendary 1960s commercial and later blues artery Maxwell Street, three listening sessions at the T.G. Masaryk Library and two masterclasses on blues songwriting and slide guitar for active musicians.

The last three-day festival passes and tickets for the accompanying events are on sale on our website.

Categorised in: Nezařazené

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