The Blues Train was founded by Hugo T. Armstrong in 1994
and is operated in partnership with Bay City Events and the Bellarine Railway
as an homage to the history of the blues musicians playing on the Mississippi freight trains. The Blues Train travels along 16 km of railway between the towns of
Queenscliff and
Drysdale with an intermediate stop at
Suma Park, on the
Bellarine Peninsula and the performers rotate.
History
The Blues Train began operating in 1993 with one or two services a year and now operates approximately forty times a year on Saturday evenings between August and occasional Fridays in December.
The Blues Train has hosted a range of
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
acts including
Chris Wilson (Australian musician)
Christopher John Wilson (2 December 1956 – 16 January 2019) was an Australian blues musician who sang and played harmonica, saxophone and guitar. He performed as part of the Sole Twisters, Harem Scarem and Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls, ...
,
Jimi Hocking
James Kevin Hocking (born 7 June 1963) otherwise known as Jimi the Human is an Australian musician. He has been a member of hard rock groups, The Angels (1988) and The Screaming Jets (1994–97, 2010–present). As a solo artist he has fronted ...
,
Claude Hay,
Ezra Lee (musician)
Ezra Lee (né Matzenik; 15 October 1986) is an Australian singer-songwriter and pianist.
Biography
Lee was born on 15 October 1986 in Tamworth, New South Wales. His father, Ed Matzenik, taught him to play piano at the age of four. Lee later ...
and others. The train was nominated for a 2020 Music Victoria Award.
See also
*
List of blues festivals
References
{{reflist
External links
The Blues Train
Music festivals established in 1993
Tourist railways in Victoria (state)
Heritage railways in Australia
Blues festivals in Australia
Folk festivals in Australia
Bellarine Peninsula
1993 establishments in Australia