Residents of the Red Stick may feel blue this Saturday, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be sad.
The Baton Rouge Blues Festival is set for this Saturday in Repentance Park downtown.
Johnny Palazzotto, Baton Rouge Blues Festival producer and executive director of the Baton Rouge Blues Foundation, said the Festival was started in 1980, discontinued in 1995 and restarted in 2008.
Palazzotto said he wanted to encourage residents to stop by the festival for three important reasons.
“There will be great food, great music and lots of room for dancing,” he said.
Palazzotto said the Baton Rouge Blues Foundation and Pal Productions Co. are putting on the fest, which boasts a lineup that includes burgeoning beginners like the opening band Mr. Hinson and the Jazz Blisters, who will play at noon and is comprised of a
East Baton Rouge Talented Music Program strings teacher David Hinson and several local high school students.
Folk-blues duo Sue Foley and Peter Karp; Jimbo Mathus, founder of the blues act “Squirrel Nut Zippers;” and Louisiana legend Henry Gray are also included in the lineup.
The show will end around 10 p.m. with Grammy award-winner Delbert McClinton.
Palazzotto said he thinks it’s important for people to attend events like the Baton Rouge Blues Festival downtown because it can give them a glimpse at what the area used to be like.
“I know what downtown was like in the ’60s,” he said. “There were no parking garages. There were movie theaters, jewelry stores and a few legendary bars.”
The festival will be held in Repentance Park, which is slated to be redesigned by spring 2012.
Davis Rhorer, executive director of the Downtown Development District, said he thinks the renovations will improve the festival.
Rhorer said an important part of the redesign is that it will tie the site of the festival to Galvez Plaza and other nearby attractions, making it more accessible to residents.