It’s just a fact that Austin can bring the blues.
Throughout the city’s musical history, it has hosted countless venues and guided musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan, W.C. Clark, and Gary Clark Jr. to the stars. Austin Blues Festival, which was revived from the short-lived “Antone’s Blues Festival” circa 1999, is a modern addition to the roster of blues showcases that this city has to offer. However, some might say that the festival hardly has anything to do with the blues at all.
On Saturday, the lineup features Austin talent on both sides of the spectrum. The show kicks off with the Huston-Tillotson Jazz Orchestra, and it ends with Jimmie Vaughan who, like his younger brother Stevie Ray, is engrained in Austin blues legend despite being born in Dallas.
However, the musicians aren’t limited to card-carrying Austinites. Los Amigos Invisibles comes from Caracas, Venezuela and plays a set almost entirely in Spanish. This doesn’t stop them from stirring the audience to their feet with a seamless blend of disco, funk, Latin, and something of their own. They played a set from the future, where songs that flip from the sounds of vintage Latin pop to space-age synthesizers (like “Viviré para Ti”) slot right in.
Today, none of the artists on the bill are perfectly cohesive. Right before Los Amigos Invisibles is an artist named D.K. Harrell whose band is explosive and whose voice takes on the rich colors of classic blues legends. His highs and lows are resonant and at times, deeply formidable. The musical power he possesses has the dynamic ability to emotionally lead the audience anywhere, but he chooses to strike joy and togetherness into our hearts above all else. He smiles through all of his songs like he’s fondly recalling old stories. Even his heartbreaks seem to have mended themselves over time and turned into cautionary lessons and full-bodied blues guitar riffs.
D.K. Harrell reminds us that the phrase “(insert genre) is dead” often comes out of the mouth of someone disengaged with new artists. He spins new life into classic formulas out of a clear love for the genre he esteems.
At the mid-point of his set, he talks about himself and how he came to be the artist with everything he has today. He talks about going from overcoming homelessness to winning blues awards, and he makes it clear that recognition doesn’t lead to stagnation. He ends his set by taking off his long-sleeve, saxophone and drums ripping behind him, and running off of the stage straight to the lawn to encourage us to dance him off.
Sun still hanging in the sky, long before Jimmie Vaughan takes stage, another captivating artist invokes the blues without playing them. Adrian Quesada’s Boleros Psicodélicos is an album, not a band. It’s a vehicle for creative direction and collaboration where one man’s talent alone cannot fill the space of what he wants to accomplish. Adrian Quesada invites three vocalists to take the helm throughout this set. Each one alters the emotional and musical atmosphere to their own aesthetic, like a boss in a video game morphing into their next form.
Angélica Garcia is the standout of the three. In a shock of icy blue eyeshadow and a ruffled gold corset, she is animated, mystic, and even crazed, at one point shaking her fists at the sky as the lyrics tell of one calling out to God. She breathes a soul into the music by performing the moments of vitriol and passion that she is recounting. Boleros are classically tender and poignant, and all three vocalists have moments of the same, but Garcia’s interpretations bring them back to the earnest woe of the blues.
Additionally, Adrian Quesada’s Boleros Psicodélicos is wonderfully Chicano. A musical style traditional to Latin America is supported here by a languid and sun-soaked band from Long Beach, California. They perform a cover of “El Muchacho De Los Ojos Tristes” that saunters forward in psychedelic slow-motion. They’re both retro and fresh, and they make the crowd feel to the top of their emotions.
So, what makes a blues festival a blues festival? Furthermore, what convinces someone to buy a ticket to hear the blues when there are plenty of less expensive opportunities decorating the calender?
Eric Johnson and even more so Jimmie Vaughan anchor the “Blues” in “Austin Blues Festival” firmly into the ground at the end of the night. They’ve got Austin celebrity status and musical style steeped in electric blues, and perhaps they’ve also got fans who laud them as creators of the good ol’ days. The angle of the Austin Blues Festival seems to be to remind us that time marches on. Just as there is a blues past, there is also a present and future that might sound either recognizable or brand new.
Tonight, though, the musicians of blues past are as sharp as ever.
The mood of the crowd undeniably shifts as Eric Johnson takes the stage. For many of the folks tonight, this is an artist they grew up being excited over. This is a special moment for Austin music lovers young and old. You might wonder why the lawn is suddenly buzzing as you watch this unflashy man and his equally unflashy band take the stage. Then, he opens with “Righteous” and a chugging electric guitar that starts high and shoots into the stars. In those first minutes, you become aware that you are in the coolest place to be.
Eric Johnson makes his guitar sing and cry out up and down the scale. It blares like the horn of a train and snaps your attention to the source until he drives it back down into the rhythmic section of his opening song. His band keeps the same pace. He takes his show to a few different places in the hour, but his virtuosic control remains the spectacle that brings the crowd to life.
Jimmie Vaughan is a sensational performer in a different way. After the high of Eric Johnson is finished, the energy has to find somewhere else to go. In Jimmie Vaughan, it finds the confidence of a performer who knows exactly what they’re going to deliver. Unlike Eric Johnson, he and his band are suited up and exude showmanship when the crowd cheers them onstage. They need no introduction as a squealing, high-paced electric blues guitar takes us into the most anticipated point of the night.
The music is youthful. It rides out energetic highs, bounces off the walls, and feeds us exciting dynamics that wail and resonate in fifth gear. Yet, the musicians onstage, especially Vaughan himself, don’t speed through a single note. At this point in their lives it seems they feel comfortable hanging back with a swagger and making us anticipate the next riff.
Vaughan gives his three guests, including Austin favorite Gary Clark Jr., who puts on another dynamic and highly anticipated performance, their own time in the spotlight. Their performances, which range from raw and fervent to deeply soulful, mesh well with the energy Vaughan and his band give to them. Everyone is feeling the playful, honest, communal spirit of blues of blues tonight.
This performance is exactly what seasoned blues fans in Austin love to see. It’s a clear, timeless sound, unrelenting energy, and it’s artists supporting artists while shamelessly showing off their own strengths. However, today illustrates that this isn’t where blues starts or stops. All over the globe, artists are taking the blues and spinning them with their own musical worlds. It may not be authentic, but if it gets people talking (and dancing), it’d be a shame not to hear it out.
The end of Jimmie Vaughan’s set doesn’t end the current of excitement that buzzes through the audience. Tomorrow is another stacked lineup of powerful, diverse performances that caps off with none other than the mythical Parliament-Funkadelic. That’s certainly one not to miss.