The 15th Annual Safeway

Waterfront Blues Festival

To Be Held July 3rd thru 7th

Tom McCall Waterfront Park

Blues fans can celebrate the Fourth of July weekend with a Northwest tradition at the 2002 Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, Wednesday through Sunday, July 3rd - 7th. Approximately 80 Blues acts will perform non-stop on three stages over the course of five days.

The Festival lineup is being finalized and among this year's confirmed artists are British Blues pioneer, John Mayall, and soul legend, Howard Tate, appearing with the Uptown Horns. Also confirmed is Blues-Rock innovator, Al Kooper, who cofounded the Blues Project and Blood Sweat and Tears. Kooper's backing band includes drummer, Anton Fig from David Letterman's Late Show band, and guitarist, Jimmy Vivino from Late Night with Conan O'Brian's band. Portland's lap guitar master, Kelly Joe Phelps will play with his acoustic trio and Texas pianist, Marcia Ball is also set to perform.

15th Annual Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival

Daily festival admission is a suggested donation of $5 per person and two cans of non-perishable food. Five-day passes will also be available. All proceeds from the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival benefit The Oregon Food Bank.

More than 125,000 Blues fans attended last year's festival, contributing a record $380,000 and 103,000 pounds of food to the Oregon Food Bank. Last year, the Oregon Food Bank Network of 781 regional food banks and local hunger-relief agencies collected 46 million pounds of food, provided emergency food boxes that made meals for 652,000 people, served 3.7 million meals, and assisted more than 80,000 others through supplemental food programs. In the first half of the current fiscal year, requests for emergency food are up an average of 18 percent.

For the past 15 years, the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival has brought the finest Blues artists in the world, some seldom seen west of the Rockies, to beautiful Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the banks of the Willamette River in downtown Portland. Last year, the Festival and its Talent Coordinator, Peter Dammann, won the Memphis-based Blues Foundation's coveted W. C. Handy "Keeping the Blues Alive Award" for Excellence in Festival Promotion.

The 2002 Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival also features a fireworks show, acoustic acts, jam sessions, artist workshops and archival Blues films from the Northwest Film Center, and an annual pottery sale to benefit OFB.