Chicago Blues Festival

Things indeed bode very well for this event, now having seen more than a quarter of a century of legendary performances. The city-funded Chicago Blues Festival attracts hundreds of thousands of fans from all over the world to the Second City's Grant Park to see Chicago's best blues musicians from the past and present for free. Seeing as Chicago's pretty much been the epicenter of the blues' evolution since World War II, one would be hard pressed to find a better package deal for both the casual and hardcore fan bases. This year admittedly branches out a bit, geographically and stylistically, including Johnny Winter and local soulman Cicero Blake, but is still chock full of artists representing not just Chicago's specialty, electric blues, but the Delta (David "Honey Boy" Edwards and L.C. Ulmer) as well. To accomodate this artistic fission are better-defined specialized stages, which efficiently groups artists of particular sub-genres and non-musical activities together throughout the day, never leaving fans of mainstream or primarily electric blues confused in terms of which stage they want to visit.