Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Preview of the Richmond Blues Festival

Tonight, several friends and I are going way old school and going to the Richmond Blues Festival. The name of the show is actually a misnomer, because it's just one big package show at the Richmond Coliseum and all the acts on the bill are more southern soul than blues. Among the performers tonight are Clarence Carter (of "Strokin" fame), Latimore ("Let's Straighten It Out"), Mel Waiters ("The Smaller The Club (The Bigger the Party)"), and Roy C.

The first and only time I've seen Roy C perform was at the 2007 Richmond Blues Festival. I had heard some of the guys I grew up with talk about him, but I had never heard him. I really liked his performance that first time in Richmond, so I ordered the CDs Sex & Soul and More Sex & Soul and the CDs did not disappoint. Since then, I've had two opportunities to see Roy C again and I've missed both of them. The first was when Roy played at Lamont's Entertainment Complex in Pomunkey, MD late in the summer of 2007 and the second was when I was wandering around the midwest in the fall of 2008 and Roy played the Roots 'N Blues Festival in Columbia, MO. (That day I ended up partying at the American Royal BBQ Contest in Kansas City until three a.m. A blog entry of some type about that night will be written sometime in the future.)

I bring up the two Roy C shows I missed because a film crew was at both shows shooting footage for the upcoming documentary Roy C Forever. The movie follows a character based on filmmaker/college professor Chase Thompson as he discovers the Roy C CD Sex & Soul in a record store and then goes off in search of Roy C. The film culiminates with scenes from the Roots 'N Blues Festival show. A short piece from The Columbia Tribune about Thompson, Roy C and the making of the film can be read here.

You can read more about the movie, the associated live CD, and watch the movie trailers at the link in the previous paragraph or you can watch the trailers and make your own judgements here.




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For a definition of southern soul and for details of my experience of seeing blues/southern soul artist Dr. Feelgood Potts, see this link.

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