Bradenton area should benefit from 'blues festival season'

Ana Popovic at the 2012 Sarasota Blues and Music Festival. Photo by Wade Tatangelo.

Welcome to Blues Festival Season, the Bradenton area's fastest growing tourist attraction.

And my favorite way to spend a day outdoors with a large group of laid-back, like-minded people.

If you're a fan of American roost music, let me point out all the major blues festivals within a five- to 45-minute drive.

We just had a great one.

And three more, which should be equally exciting, are on the way.

Blues Festival Season started on the last Saturday in September with a most enjoyable 22nd annual edition of the Sarasota Blues and Music Festival.

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Sarasota Blues Fest headliner Delbert McClinton on teaching harmonica to John Lennon: interview

Delbert McClinton has released four CDs that have reached No. 1 on the blues albums chart, has been inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame and won a Grammy Award.

And that's just since 2001.

Go back a couple more decades, and there's the Top 10 single "Giving It Up For Your Love," the popular country duet with Tanya Tucker "Tell Me About It," and another Grammy Award for his duet with Bonnie Raitt, "Good Man, Good Woman."

McClinton also wrote the Emmylou Harris No. 1 hit "Two More Bottles of Wine."

And gave harmonica lessons to John Lennon.

Yes, THAT John Lennon.

McClinton, a Texas roots music hero who first tasted international fame in the early 1960s, has finally started to slow down a little.

He scheduled just a handful of shows this month including his headlining spot at the Sarasota Blues and Music Festival on Saturday.

"I just don't care anymore about being out there eight days a week," McClinton said by phone while vacationing in Mexico earlier his month. "I work just enough to satisfy the jones."

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Sarasota Blues and Music Festival schedule  

—Delbert McClinton publicity photo provided.

Name that Manatee! Sea cow adorns new logo for Sarasota Blues & Music Fest

The Sarasota Blues & Music Festival (formerly the Sarasota Blues Fest) just posted its new logo on Facebook:

"As we’ve been going down the path of pulling this year’s festival together, we realized we needed a logo and reached out to the artist of previous festival posters, Jeff Troldahl, to give us his take on what a logo should look like," spokesman Deven Nongbri wrote in an email to me. "He’s been doing the festival posters for the past thirteen years and has a great feel for the vibe of the festival.

"We’ll announce a contest later this spring to name the manatee, but this will be a logo we’ll see more of in the coming year."

How about Snooty?

Click for more info on the event that takes place Sept. 29.