News Release

2008 FedEx Workshop Stage to offer rich learning experience                                     

PORTLAND, Ore. (June 17, 2008)— It’s intimate. It’s dynamic. It’s the little gem of the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, presented by First Tech Credit Union, July 3 to 6, 2008.

The FedEx Workshop Stage is the cozy corner of the festival site … where blues legends tell their stories and talk to fans one-on-one … where world-class musicians teach children to play blues rhythms and riffs ... where the experts share their musical knowledge … and where amazing things happen.

Now in its sixth year, the FedEx Freight Workshop Stage will offer a full line-up of educational workshops, performances, interviews and children’s programming that help give the festival its distinctive character and cultural depth.

Here are just a few of the FedEx Workshop Stage highlights:

Thursday, July 3

• Lap-steel guitar with Colin Lake, winner of last year’s Telluride Acoustic Blues Competition.

• Intro to County Blues: Mark Lemhouse. Handy Award-nominated guitarist Mark Lemhouse will demonstrate fingerpicking, slide guitar techniques, open tunings and guitar styles of Robert Johnson, Son House, Charley Patton and Fred MacDowell.

• Boogie-woogie Basics with David Vest. The Alabama-born and former Texan, Vest, whose keyboard powered the Paul deLay Band for the last few years, will share tips on approaching the piano’s most explosive repertoire.

• Slide Guitar and Harmonica Stylings with Moreland and Arbuckle. This high-energy trio from Kansas City will move effortlessly between raw-edged country blues and bone-crunching, hip-shaking electric blues.

Friday, July 4

• Electric Blues Guitar: Kirk Fletcher, Kid Ramos. Two of the most powerful guitarists on the international blues circuit — both toured at different points with the Fabulous thunderbirds, and have individually worked with Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza, and James Harman — share insights on the inner game of electric blues guitar.

• Blues and Ragtime Guitar Styles with Mary Flower. Flower, an internationally-known musician, teacher and performer of blues and roots music, will focus on the Piedmont style of finger-picking blues and the players who made it famous — the Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Blake.

• Blues Harp with Johnny Dyer and Lynnwood Slim. Dyer, who grew up in the Mississippi Delta, is one of the truly great harp players of his generation, the generation that came out of the heyday of the blues harp in the 1950s. He teams up with Los Angeles’ harmonica ace Lynnwood Slim to share pointers.

• Hawkeye Herman, winner of the coveted Keeping the Blues Alive Award for his pioneering of blues education in the schools, will appear in performance and in workshop settings at this year’s festival.

• Roots Revival. This ensemble of talented young musicians originally came together to present blues education programs in area schools. Explore the roots of the blues with the genre's future: featuring guitarist T.J. Moor, who at age 14 has already jammed with such blues legends as Pinetop Perkins and Willie Big Eyes Smith, and multi-instrumentalist Mac Potts, who sat in with Harry Connick Jr. during New Orleans Jazz Heritage Festival. Roots Revival were recently invited to appear at next year's Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival, the premier blues festival in the South. 

Saturday, July 5

• Rehearsing the Rhythm Section in Blues: Fiona Boyes, David Kahl and Jeff Minnick. Australian guitarist and past International Blues Challenge winner Fiona Boyes will team up with former Paul deLay Band bassist Dave Kahl and drummer Jeff Minnick to demonstrate the nuances of putting the groove into a blues repertoire.

• Remembering Freddie King. Dallas guitarist, songwriter and singer Andrew “Jr. Boy” Jones hit the road with Freddie King’s band, The Thunderbirds, when he was just 16. Jones spent close to a decade with King, one of, if not the most, influential modern electric blues guitarist. Jones will share riffs and stories he collected on that tour.

• Zydeco Music from the Triple Note Accordion. Third-generation accordionist Troy Carrier (AKA Dikki Du, brother to Chubby and son to Roy Carrier) demonstrates the ins and outs of the traditional Cajun squeezebox.

• Exploring the Music of Louisiana’s Bayous: Steve Kerin & Friends. Have you ever wondered what a New Orleans jazz funeral is like? Or what the “second line” means in second line music? Steve Kerin, born and raised in Cajun country, will explore the jazz culture of authentic Louisiana-style music in a workshop featuring a gumbo of guest musicians, including a jambalaya of deep-south musical genres.

• Rocking the Boat: Making a Music Documentary at Sea. Filmmaker Jay Curlee will discuss his award-winning documentary Rocking The Boat, which profiles Delbert McClinton’s annual floating music festival, the Sandy Beaches Cruise. Curlee will show clips of the documentary and share behind-the-scenes stories about the artists (among them, Paul Thorn, who will appear on the Credit Union Blues Stage shortly before this workshop) and will discuss how a project like this gets made. 

Sunday, July 6

• Blues piano workshop for children. Portland keyboardist David Moore leads this hands-on workshop for kids.

• Guitar workshops/interviews with award-winning delta blues woman Rory Block and Texas folk-soul belter Ruthie Foster.

• Mississippi Hill Blues with Robert Belfour. A neighbor and contemporary of the late R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, Belfour is arguably the finest living purveyor of the percussive, hypnotic blues style that came out of the hilly region of north Mississippi.

The FedEx Workshop Stage is one of five stages, featuring 120 performances, at the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival. Daily admission to the festival is a suggested donation of $10 per person per day and two cans of food. For every dollar donation, OFB can collect and distribute five pounds of food. The festival is the major annual fund-raiser for Oregon Food Bank, a charitable nonprofit agency. Proceeds benefit Oregon Food Bank’s work to eliminate hunger and its root causes … because no one should be hungry.

About Oregon Food Bank: Oregon Food Bank is a nonprofit, charitable organization. It is the hub of the Oregon Food Bank Network, a statewide network of 20 regional food banks and 919 hunger-relief agencies serving Oregon and Clark County, Wash.

About festival sponsors: The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is presented by First Tech Credit Union. Major sponsors include FedEx Freight, PacificSource Health Plans, iQ Credit Union, Daimler Truck Financial, Land Rover, The Oregonian A&E, KINK.fm and Travel Portland. Supporting sponsors include Burt’s Bees, Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Miller Brewing Co., Henry Weinhard's, Deschutes Brewery, Beringer Wine, Snapple, Pepsi, Nutrisoda, Earth2o Water, Frito Lay Snacks, Yoshida Sauce, Mission Foods, Dreyer’s Ice Cream, NW Natural, FedEx Kinko’s, Impact Advertising, Edge Design, The Boeing Company, PGE, KBOO, OregonLive.com, Blues Revue, Music Millennium, Karolyn March, Guitar Center, Lions Foundation, Cascade Blues Association, Oregon Potters Association, Cascade Zydeco and Delta Music Experience.

For more information, visit www.waterfrontbluesfest.com.    ###