Chicago Bluegrass And Blues Festival Rolls Back Into Town This Week
By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 9, 2014 10:00PM
A festival devoted to Americana music? In the middle of January? Only in Chicago. The Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival returns this week for its fifth birthday. Once housed within the now all but shuttered Congress Theatre, the fest faces a new format this year without sacrificing any talent.
Much like Tomorrow Never Knows or Riot Fest's original form, this year CBB will take place over three weeks at multiple venues, namely Concord Music Hall, City Winery, SPACE (in Evanston) and The Tonic Room.
"Originally, when Mike Raspatello founded this, the concept was bringing a festival indoors so we took over the Congress Theater and put three stages in there," festival organizer Mike Berg told Chicagoist. "Then as the years developed we started to do that flagship event but still move it into other smaller venues like Lincoln Hall and Double Door. That’s sort of the format we ended up having to take this year. We don't work in the Congress anymore and Concord is one of our home bases at this point so we booked the higher volume shows there."
Those "higher volume" shows include performances from Justin Townes Earle, Greensky Bluegrass and Rusted Root. Acts like Wilco side project The Autumn Defense, David Grisman and The Giving Tree Band round out the rest of the fest's 2014 lineup.
Festival founder Mike Raspatello has since moved to St. Louis but still stays on as an advisor. Silver Wrapper and React Presents carry the festival's booking and marketing responsibilities under Raspatello's consultation.
In case you thought you missed something, there was no CBB Festival 2013. The last festival occurred in 2012 but, Berg and Raspatello explained, venue closures and openings pushed the festival into the new year.
"We kind of roll with the environment and the Chicago landscape around this type of music so places will close and other places will open up that cater to this type of music and we'll realize that any given year any combination of places and bands and formats can support this fest," said Raspatello. "With the Congress no longer being there and places like Concord opening up and SPACE and City Winery supporting this type of music and smaller promoters embracing it and doing series in this vein already at Tonic Room, it's kind of any given year you put your finger on the pulse and see how it dictates how the festival format is going to work best."
So, what is it about bluegrass and folk music that has so many venues, promoters and music fans within a bustling, skyscraper-laden urban setting wanting more?
"This is just my personal opinion, I don't really know how it caught fire in cities," Raspatello mused during our conversation with him, "but I think part of it is people having the opportunity to channel a sort of different reality…That's kind of how I got into it. I never lived in the country. I never had that mountain lifestyle and this allows me to daydream into that world. I think it probably does that for a lot of other people who grew up in more urban areas, just like suburban kids who get into hip hop."
There might be an appreciation for these types of rural sounds in Chicago, but the festival reps still believe more can be done to foster the local scene.
"I see there being a lack of [a bluegrass] community in Chicago," Berg explained. "We wanted to create a series that would nurture it, kind of throw some fuel on the fire so that it became a bigger deal and a more prevalent part of our culture here."
In fact, Berg and Raspatello both insist that January is the best time for a festival like this. Summer events like Square Roots Festival and the Chicago Blues Festival bring awareness to the genre only to leave it high and during during the winter months.
With more than a dozen shows on its schedule this time around, the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival is certainly well represented across the city with plenty of variety to boot.
"We already have the name Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival but it’s really become an Americana music festival at this point," Berg admitted to Chicagoist.
The Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival runs January 10 through February 1 at multiple venues. For a full list of shows, see below.
01/10/14 - Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater w/ Will Jacobs Band at SPACE BUY TICKETS
01/10/14 - Leagues & The Autumn Defense w/ The Giving Tree Band, Dick Prall at Concord Music Hall BUY TICKETS
01/11/14 - Acoustics Anonymous w/ Clusterpluck at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/13/14 - Jonathan Batiste at City Winery BUY TICKETS
01/14/14 - Tiny Miles & The Big Kids at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/15/14 - David Grisman JazzFolk Trio at City Winery BUY TICKETS
01/15/14 - Great Divide w/ Nick and the Orovols at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/16/14 - David Grisman JazzFolk Trio at City Winery BUY TICKETS
01/16/14 - Evergreen Grass Band at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/17/14 - Shemekia Copeland at SPACE BUY TICKETS
01/17/14 - Justin Townes Earle & The Felice Brothers at Concord Music Hall BUY TICKETS
01/18/14 - Greensky Bluegrass w/ Escondido at Concord Music Hall BUY TICKETS
01/18/14 - Shemekia Copeland at SPACE BUY TICKETS
01/18/14 - American Babies at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/23/14 - Huckleberry Green at Tonic Room BUY TICKETS
01/25/14 - Rusted Root w/ Donna the Buffalo at Concord Music Hall BUY TICKETS
02/01/14 - Swear and Shake at SPACE BUY TICKETS