LEHIGH RIVER BLUES JAM PLAYS LAST LICKS
Lehigh River Blues Jam, the celebration of the American genre of music that for 15 years has brought national recording acts to the Lehigh Valley, has reached the end of its stream, organizers announced Saturday at what they said was its last show.
And if, indeed, the concert at Allentown’s Days Inn Jetport was the end of the festival, it made a sweet final splash with its longest single-day event ever — a seven-act, seven-hour show headlined by Blues Hall of Fame guitarist Bobby Kyle and The Administers.
Valley blues singer Bev Conklin, who started the festival in 2006 at Catasauqua’s then-brand-new bandshell, said the area blues scene has grown a lot since Lehigh River Blues Jam gave the area its first blues festival.
Now, she said, the schedule is far busier, with ArtsQuest’s Blast Furnace Blues festival, Allentown’s Blues, Brews and Barbecue, the Reading Blues Fest and more.
“This was a mission to bring everyone together,” she said in an interview at Saturday’s event. “It has blossomed. But this was an event that had the spirit of what the blues is all about. This is grass-roots. Now, you can see this free on any given weekend in the summer.”
Conklin also noted that she’s been playing music for 30 years.
“I’m not getting any younger,” she said. “I still want to enjoy myself as a musician.”
Conklin said the success of Lehigh River Blues Jam has been due to both the area’s blues talent, and the volunteers and staff behind the event.
“We’re just blessed to have people in the Lehigh Valley,” she said. “We have such a wealth of talent,” mentioning such area artists as Mike Dugan, Craig Thatcher and the late Mike Mettalia.
Lehigh River Blues Jam started as a one-day festival in the Catasauqua borough park and grew into a four-day June event.
It celebrated 10 years at that location, but the outdoor festival was plagued by rainstorms, frequently having to move indoors. For its last year there in 2015, rain canceled the festival’s headline night, which was to have included giving a Lifetime Achievement Award to Grammy-nominee Eddy “The Chief ” Clearwater.
The borough’s recreation committee in 2016 withdrew as a sponsor for the 11th year, and the event moved and split into single-day spring and summer festivals — originally in April at Days Inn Ballroom and July at the Charles A. Brown Ice House in Bethlehem.
But after just one year as a split festival, in 2017 it moved to its final formation: As a solo January festival at Days Inn, with Kyle headlining.
The festival seemed to thrive there, and Conklin said Saturday’s event was similarly “amazing.” She said the ballroom was set up for 300 people, and was full throughout the day, indicating a transient audience far higher than capacity.
Kyle and his energetic, enthusiastic four-man band gave a smoking, sweaty, seven-song, 45-minute headline set.
The highlight, of course, was the stinging notes from his hollow-body electric guitar, bolstered by two horns. And while much of his set was more traditional R&B blues, songs from his newest album, “It’s My Life,” including the title track, were swinging bluesrock that had the audience moving.
Kyle, who toured with late blues guitarist and singer Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, closed his set with a blistering version of Copeland’s “Flyin’ High (Yesterday).”
During the night, several people who took to the microphone made heartfelt statements about the festival’s reaching the end of the line.
Before introducing the final act of the night, central Pennsylvania harmonicist Nate Myers, DJ Mitch of radio station WODE-FM 99.9 The Hawk, one of the day’s masters of ceremony, said he was “a little misty-eyed.”
“Have we just had a wonderful lineup for the swan song?” he said. “I don’t want to see it go. A fabulous 15 years.”
The audience, too, seemed to not want it to go. As Myers wound down his set and the audience started to thin, there still were more than a dozen people on the dance floor. For the night’s final song — a rolling and chugging “Sweet Home Chicago,” two dozen people got up to dance.
After Myers and his band concluded, volunteer Stevie Ray Ward — who said he has worked security at the event since it started — took to the microphone.
“Well, folks,” he said, “The end of the night is here. And the end of an era.”