Overview

North America’s first electric blues festival was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan in August 1969. That’s when a small group of University of Michigan students, influenced by the ‘60s counterculture, defied racial prejudice and introduced 20,000 mostly white teenagers to a cadre of black blues musicians – many of whose songs were only known to mainstream Americans because they had been re-released by white rock and roll bands like Cream, Derek & The Dominos, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and the Rolling Stones. Guided by music industry stalwart Bob Koester of Delmark Records, students John Fishel and Cary Gordon assembled two dozen artists, now widely considered to be among the greatest blues musicians who ever lived, for a 3-day celebration of Chicago-style blues. B.B. King. Muddy Waters. Howlin’ Wolf. Freddie King. Magic Sam. John Lee Hooker. Luther Allison. Big Mama Thornton. Charlie Musselwhite. Junior Wells. Fred McDowell. Son House. T-Bone Walker. The list goes on and on. The Ann Arbor Blues Festival is significant for far more than the fact that it was the first blues festival of its kind. Its significance is racial, it is cultural, and it is political. Through the power of music, The Ann Arbor Blues Festival united musician and audience, student and teacher, have- and have-not, black and white. It influenced and it inspired. It can safely be said that The Ann Arbor Blues Festival changed the world. A half-century later, society is again at a crossroads. We face many of the same social, cultural, and political challenges that existed in 1969: we have become more polarized, more divided. The 50th anniversary of the festival that changed everything is the perfect occasion to reaffirm the spirit of unity and equity that the Ann Arbor Blues Festival ushered in.