Decade of Blues Fest music, diversity

By Virgil Hervey

The 10th edition of the village’s annual celebration of music and diversity called the Blues Fest kicked off this week with Gospel Fest at the Central Chapel A.M.E. church on Wednesday evening, and continues with performances by Reggie Stone, Greg Beasly, and Eric Bibb at Kelly Hall on the Antioch campus on Thursday evening, Sept. 6. The festival will blast blues and jazz through this weekend with afternoon and evening performances featuring local and nationally known performers.

“Saturday night will be the big party,” organizer Faith Patterson said when asked if there is anything special planned for the tenth anniversary.

The Sunday afternoon schedule leaves room for additional events after 6 p.m. However, nothing specific has been planned as of the publication of this article. Last year, comedian Dave Chappelle, son of Blues Fest co-founder Bill Chappelle, sponsored a Sunday event that drew thousands to the village and attracted national attention. There has been much speculation around town about the possibility of an encore this year in that 6 p.m. Sunday slot but when asked, Faith Patterson denied that anything is in the works, even though she said Chappelle has volunteered to help. She cited his busy schedule as a reason why organizers have declined to impose on him this year.

For 10 years, the Patterson family has been the driving force behind Blues Fest. Talk to any of them — mother, Faith; daughter, Karen; or son, Roth — about it and you soon find yourself being drawn into their world, the world of family, community, diversity.

Back in 1996 Faith Patterson and her late husband Pat were attending a blues festival in Portland, Ore., where their son Nerak Roth Patterson, blues guitarist and singer, was performing. “We can do that!” she is reported to have told family members afterward. And when she returned to Yellow Springs, she told Bill Chappelle and anyone else from the African American Cross-Cultural Works (AACW) who would listen. She drew them in, and the very next year they were putting on their first Blues Fest.

An event called African American Cultural Week had been started a few years earlier as the senior project of John Simms, an Antioch student. AACW was formed to carry on the event as a way to promote cross-cultural understanding. According to Patterson, Blues Fest seemed like the perfect vehicle for continuing in that tradition.

The best way to bring people together is to give them a job to do, she said. Annually, the festival relies on some 250 local volunteers to help pull it off.

Although festival organizers have trouble agreeing on whether the Blues Fest began with the student project or the year the AACW took over, which has led them to refer to past years as the 10th anniversary, it has been 10 years this year since the beginning of the annual community-wide celebration of diversity now known as Blues Fest.

According to Karen Patterson, Blues Fest, as it has been called for most of its 10 years, is now being called the Blues, Jazz and Cultural Fest, in recognition of the elements it added over the years by including traditional jazz artists, such as this year’s appearance by the Deborah Coleman Band on Saturday night, and an educational element with talks and workshops by featured artists in Kelly Hall and at Wittenberg and on stage at the festival’s main venue, the Antioch College Amphitheater.

“It’s not just a blues festival,” Faith Patterson said. “It’s an educational process and it’s about living together.”

Every year the festival relies on a staple of past performers, such as Guy Davis, mixed with local talent such as Magnolia Bolthead and the W.G. Blues Unit, and well-known first-timers, such as Eric Bibb, and Al Caldwell of the Traveling Black -Hillbillies.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have performed at this festival every year since its inception, 10 years ago,” Davis said in a recent e-mail. “Faith and Karen Patterson came to see me a year before that in Dayton...I love them. They’ve always treated me like family.”

Karen Patterson, a classical and jazz cellist, runs the festival’s Innovation Stage on Saturday afternoon and organizes youth workshops between sets throughout the event. This year the innovation stage will feature the spoken word, dance, theater, bands performing blues, jazz, R&B and rappers. Kids are invited to bring their instruments for 15–20 minute blues workshops between shows. They can call first at 767-9114 or just show up and look for her, she said.

Karen Patterson will be appear in a variety of performances with and without her “associated posse,” including performing on her electric cello and jamming with various different performers.

When asked what will happen to Blues Fest when her family is no longer involved, she said, “Blues Fest is a long term work in progress. Others will emerge.”

The complete schedule can be found at www.aacw.org. or in the Yellow Springs News calendar of events. The suggested donation for amphitheater events is $10.

Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com