Waterfront Blues Festival south main stage

The Waterfront Blues Festival is an annual event in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

featuring four days of performances by

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 ...

musicians. The

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

started in 1988 and takes place in

Tom McCall Waterfront Park Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park is a park located in downtown Portland, Oregon, along the Willamette River. After the 1974 removal of Harbor Drive, a major milestone in the freeway removal movement, the park was opened to the public in 1978 ...

, along the west bank of the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the city center of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildings are found. ...

History

The festival began in 1987 as the Rose City Blues Festival, sponsored by the Cascade Blues Association, to benefit the Burnside Community Council's projects for the homeless. The FM

community radio station Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular ...

KBOO KBOO is a non-profit organization, listener-funded FM Community radio station broadcasting from Portland, Oregon. The station's mission is to serve groups in its listening area who are underrepresented on other local radio stations and to provi ...

has broadcast performances from the event, throughout the festival's history. The following year, Oregon Food Share (predecessor of the

Oregon Food Bank The Oregon Food Bank is a hunger relief organization based in the U.S. state of Oregon. History The Oregon Food Bank began as Oregon Food Share (OFS) which was founded in 1982. OFS created the first statewide foodbank network in the United Stat ...

) became the beneficiary of the Rose City Blues Festival. In 1991, the name was changed to the Waterfront Blues Festival. The festival celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2007, earning the Rose City Award from the Portland Oregon Visitors Association and an official

U.S. Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the Federal government of the Uni ...

postmark A postmark is a postal marking made on an envelope, parcel, postcard or the like, indicating the place, date and time that the item was delivered into the care of a postal service, or sometimes indicating where and when received or in transit. ...

commemorating the festival. There was no festival in 2020 as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. The 2021 festival was held at

Zidell Yards Zidell Yards is a former industrial waterfront in Portland, Oregon's South Portland neighborhood, owned by Zidell Companies and planned for development. The Lot at Zidell Yards The Lot at Zidell Yards is slated to host outdoor events during the ...

, but 2022 saw the festival return to its usual location at Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Waterfront main seating area

Art

Every year there is a new poster for the Waterfront Blues Festival. The artist is

Gary Houston Gary Joseph Houston (né Garland; born October 12, 1957) is an American former professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season with the Nuggets ( 1979–80). Gary is the half ...

, who has been making the iconic poster art for the festival for eighteen years

References

External links

* * 1988 establishments in Oregon Annual events in Portland, Oregon Blues festivals in the United States Folk festivals in the United States Festivals in Portland, Oregon Music festivals established in 1988 Tom McCall Waterfront Park Music festivals in Oregon {{Oregon-org-stub

History

Art

See also

References

External links