Festival to honor blues greats> Children of Chicago legends to appear at 5th annual Rockland event

When most people travel, they bring home some photos, some souvenirs, maybe a hotel towel or two. Paul Benjamin brings back bands.

Benjamin has been attending the Chicago Blues Festival for a decade. He does not consider the annual trip a success unless he finds another great band for his annual Rockland event, the North American Blues Festival.

The event will be held at the waterfront park at the city’s public landing July 11 and 12. The headliners will be Koko Taylor on Saturday and Bernard Allison on Sunday.

But in his fifth year, Benjamin has added his own tribute to the Chicago blues.

The Sunday show will open with Bill Morganfield, the son of legendary blues man Muddy Waters. Morganfield tried to ignore his roots by attending college and becoming a teacher. Then in 1989 he was invited onstage by Lonnie Mack at an Atlanta blues show. His rough harmonica brought people to their feet, and he was hooked. At age 23, he acknowledged his roots and decided to become a blues musician.

He retreated to his room and sharpened his skills, analyzing the structure of blues music until he started writing his own tunes. He has already written 250 songs, mostly for his own group, the Stone Cold Blues Band. No one has to twist his arm to play his father’s classics “Rolling Stone” and “Walking Blues.”

Also on the Sunday bill will be Shemika Copeland, daughter of the late Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, and Allison, son of late blues great Luther Allison. Buddy Guy’s brother Phil Guy also will share the Sunday bill.

The tribute idea came to Benjamin after Junior Wells died a few months after closing the 1997 Rockland festival.

“Rockland was the last festival that Junior ever played. After we lost Luther Allison and Johnny Copeland, too, I wanted to do something. Then I went to Chicago and saw Shemika. She was the talk of the town. With the exception of Ray Charles, she was the hit of the show. When I saw Morganfield and Bernard Allison, I thought it would be great to get all three of them for the North Atlantic festival.

“To my knowledge, it is the only festival where the three of them will appear together,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin was also fortunate to get Melvin Taylor for the Sunday lineup, he said. “He is one of the best up-and-coming musicians around,” he said.

Tickets will be $20 per day in advance, or $25 at the gate. A two-day advance ticket of $30 will also include entry into the ever-expanding “pub crawl,” which will close Rockland’s Main Street on Saturday night.

“How about that? The blues closing Route 1 in Rockland on a Saturday night. That is something,” said Benjamin, who has watched his audience grow from a few dozen patrons in folding chairs in a motel parking lot nine years ago to about 6,000 last year. This year he expects 7,000 to 8,000.

At the Saturday night pub crawl after the festival concludes, blues bands will be playing in 13 area lounges as well as on Main Street. Bands will be coming from Washington, D.C., Providence and Boston.

“These are all good bands, maybe a step away from being hot acts,” Benjamin said.

The second weekend in July has become favorite for music festivals. Eleven blues festivals will be held across the country the same weekend. “I think our lineup is as strong as any of them,” Benjamin said.

The Saturday bill includes Johnny Rawls, Lil’ Malcolm, Studebaker John, Joanna Connor, Saffire and the Uppity Blues Women, Bobby Parker and Taylor. The Sunday attractions are Morganfield, Jimmy Johnson, Copeland, Guy, Carey Bell, Taylor and Allison.