Submitted photo HEADLINER: Steve Hester will headline this year’s Hot Springs Blues Festival in Hill Wheatley Plaza Aug. 31.The 23rd annual Hot Springs Blues Festival will be held today at Hill Wheatley Plaza with a wide variety of acts scheduled to perform throughout the afternoon and into the night.
Bert Clevenger, president of Spa City Blues Society, which is hosting the event, attempted to explain blues music for those unsure of what the genre is. “If you know what ZZ Top sounds like,” he said, noting ZZ Top sang an edgier, Texas style of blues.
“If you like ZZ Top or B.B. King, then you like the blues,” Clevenger said.
While all of the seven acts scheduled to perform today are blues artists, Clevenger said each of them perform a different style. “We have such a wide variety of music. (The) styles are vastly different,” he said.
The theme of this year’s festival is Arkansas and Clevenger said each of groups, with one exception, are based in Arkansas. One band, the Grant Garland Band, is from Tennessee, but the leader of the band is originally from northern Arkansas.
Scheduled performers include solo artist Mike Tripp, at 1 p.m., the Spa City Youngbloods, 1:50 p.m., Greg “Big Papa” Binns, 3:10 p.m., Ben “Swamp Donkey” Brenner, 4 p.m., Charlotte Taylor & Gypsy Rain, 5 p.m., the Grant Garland Band, 6:30 p.m., and the Steve Hester Band, 8:15 p.m.
Tripp and Binns are both from Garland County, and Brenner is from Pulaski County. The Youngbloods are junior high and high school-aged youngsters that SCBS supports.
The Grant Garland Band plays all over Tennessee, focusing on Nashville and Memphis. Clevenger said the group plays regularly at B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street in Memphis.
Another act who has performed in Memphis is Taylor, who competed in the 2019 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. She represented SCBS at the competition after she won the Local International Blues Challenge in Hot Springs earlier this year. SCBS sponsored her during the Memphis competition.
The reason Arkansas was chosen for the theme, Clevenger said, was because the festival had a couple of years that did not go well. “We are still trying to get back on our feet,” he said, noting that in 2015 and 2016 they had expensive acts, but inclement weather prevented the shows from being a success. Arkansas bands, he said, are “less expensive to deal with.”
Clevenger stressed this doesn’t mean the level of talent on display will be reduced this year. Clevenger, speaking for SCBS, said, “We like every one of them.
Adding to the theme, local beer from Superior Bathhouse Brewery and water from Mountain Valley Spring Water will be available at the festival. Other sponsors include Visit Hot Springs, The Waters Hotel, the Arlington Hotel Resort Hotel & Spa, The Hotel Hot Springs & Spa, Prince and Tuohey CPA, CableLynx, LongHorn Steakhouse, Matthew Cox Marketing, Tom Cat Cigar Box Guitars, Rave Graffix, and Big Event Music.
There will also be carnival-style food for sale, Clevenger said, including corn dogs and hamburgers and shaved ice.
Clevenger said the festival appeals to many different age groups. He said he has been attending the event for a dozen years and every year he sees all ages from little children to people the age of his grandparents.
He said the average attendance for the event is between 500 and 700 and he is hoping to have record attendance this year, as the weather “looks wonderful.”
Gates open at noon and the event ends at 10 p.m. Admission is $20.
Local on 08/31/2019