{"id":29539,"date":"2025-07-02T05:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T09:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29539"},"modified":"2025-06-06T12:08:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T16:08:39","slug":"blues-is-booming-in-the-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/blues-is-booming-in-the-bay-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues is Booming in the Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"NOTE: This feature was written to preview the festival that took place in mid-June 2025. — bk<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well into its fifth decade, popular Fountain Blues Festival expands to two days<\/i><\/p>\n

Building on its successful 40-plus year history, the Fountain Blues Festival comes to Plaza de Cesar Chavez on June 14-15. Award-winning guitarists Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram and Walter Trout will headline a bill that also includes Kid Andersen\u2019s Greaseland All Stars, Vanessa Collier, Aki Kumar, Alabama Mike, M’Sippi Slide, Mike Zito and more. This year\u2019s lineup builds on the Festival\u2019s expansion into \u201cblues-adjacent music,\u201d what Fountain Blues Foundation board secretary and marketing director Dan Orloff describes as \u201cmusic that brings people closer to the blues, [even though] they may not know they\u2019re listening<\/i> to the blues.\u201d The festival will also feature artisans, family fun and plenty of regional food trucks and craft beverages.<\/p>\n

Keeping the Blues Alive<\/b>
\nThe Fountain Blues Festival traces its history back to 1981, when founder Ted Gehrke launched the event in conjunction with the Associated Students Program Board of San Jose State University. \u201cHe was quite a character; bigger than life,\u201d says Orloff. \u201cTed was very passionate about live music, and about music having an impact on our lives.\u201d Over the years, Gherke was a prime mover in growing the annual event, remaining active until his death in 2019.<\/p>\n

Board president Suzanne St. John-Crane is a well-known figure in the Bay Area music scene; in the \u201890s she sang with Archie Lee Hooker, son of famed blues legend John Lee Hooker. Since 2000 she has fronted Pearl Alley with husband and guitarist David Crane. St. John-Crane was recruited to the Fountain Blues Foundation\u2019s board by past chair (and founder of \u201860s garage rock sensation Syndicate of Sound) Bob Gonzales. \u201cBob and Dan Orloff helped keep [the festival] alive for years,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Orloff is a marketing consultant who advises business and nonprofit organizations. A multi-instrumentalist and founder of San Jose Rocks, for the last decade he has been combining his expertise and passion for music through his work with the Fountain Blues Foundation. \u201cBoth Suzanne and I have been deeply involved in what we lovingly refer to as the \u2018San Jose condition,\u2019 trying to lift this downtown and create the experience economy.\u201d he says. Orloff believes that live music is central to that mission. \u201cBut live music doesn\u2019t stay alive without people keeping<\/i> it alive,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Orloff admits that living up to that mission presents challenges. \u201cFrankly, the festival industry is hurting,\u201d he says. The costs involved in producing a festival continue to mount; Orloff cites several contributing factors including security and the infrastructure that supports crowd visits. \u201cAnd artists need to charge more,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause they\u2019re getting less from royalties than they did back in the old days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fountain Blues Festival does more than provide a great experience for the featured musicians, artists and fans, Orloff believes. \u201cIt activates the properties and the individuals around the businesses and residences in the downtown,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s a big part of why we do it.\u201d In Orloff\u2019s view, San Jose is the only place in all of the Bay Area that\u2019s prepared to deliver an experience on the level of the festival, the oldest event of its kind in Northern California.<\/p>\n

St. John-Crane says that the mission of the Foundation is \u201cpreservation, education and celebration of the indigenous American art for we know as the blues.\u201d From a personal standpoint, the educational component resonates most deeply for her. \u201cAs the mother of a couple of young women who are musicians, I\u2019m really interested in that,\u201d she says. \u201cMusic is medicine, and our young people need that right now.\u201d She says that educational initiatives will explore \u201cfuture careers at the intersection of music, touring and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

But right now, everyone involved \u2013 the foundation board members and their all-volunteer team \u2013 is focused on putting together this year\u2019s festival. In an era where festival ticket prices are soaring, and some events have scaled back, the Fountain Blues Festival is heading in the opposite direction. Advance tickets granting access to all performances are priced at $51.50.<\/p>\n

And for 2025, the festival expands to two days. \u201cI was emceeing the festival last year,\u201d St. John-Crane recalls. \u201cMayor [Matt] Mahan was onstage with me, and he asked, \u2018Why isn\u2019t this a two-day event?\u2019\u201d When she explained that a bigger festival would require more funding, Mahan replied, \u201cHow do I help with that?\u201d Not long thereafter, a fundraising event succeeded in securing the financial resources to make a two-day festival a reality. \u201cThe mayor got the right people in the room,\u201d she says. So while some smaller and mid-sized festivals are going away, St. John-Crane says that the Fountain Blues Festival is \u201cbucking the trend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This feature was written to preview the festival that took place in mid-June 2025. — bk Well into its fifth decade, popular Fountain Blues Festival expands to two days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,44],"tags":[5707],"class_list":["post-29539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","category-live-shows","tag-fountain-blues-festival","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","cat-44-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29541,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29539\/revisions\/29541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}