Ain’t no cure for the summertime blues

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It’s time to once again flag a ride down to the crossroads of Park and Main in Rockland for two days of hot music at the annual North Atlantic Blues Festival.

Blues legend Otis Rush and shooting star Shemekia Copeland are the headliners for this year’s festival, which will be held in Harbor Park this weekend, July 12-13.

Opening acts will hit the stage overlooking Rockland Harbor at 11:30 a.m. each day, and the headliners will turn off their amplifiers and close the show sometime after 6 p.m.

Along with Rush and Copeland, harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite and guitarist J. Giles and the Boston Blues Explosion also top the bill at New England’s premier blues festival. Major acts from across the blues spectrum will also perform.

Otis Rush was born 69 years ago in Philadelphia, Miss., and began teaching himself the guitar and harmonica before the age of 8. He moved to Chicago and worked days on a horse-drawn coal wagon and by night in the blues clubs on the city’s south and west sides.

Rush played his first gigs as a solo artist, but it didn’t take long before he put together a band of his own. He was one of the first Windy City musicians to use an electric bass in his band, and the new sound took the city by storm. Both young and old musicians would flock to see him play. His style has influenced many younger players, and Rush maintains a strong following with guitar-playing bluesmen.

Rush headlined the Chicago Blues Festival earlier this year and is looking forward to closing Saturday night’s show in the Lime City.

“I like Rockland,” Rush 69, said, speaking by phone from Chicago. “It’s nice, real nice. It’s always a pleasure to play there. I love the ocean, I love the crowd. Man, we’re going to be doing some hard playing and some hard singing. Everybody is playing great, and we’re going to do our best.”

The U.S. Congress may have declared 2003 the Year of the Blues, but in Rockland this is the 10th year running that blues impresarios Paul Benjamin and Jamie Isaacson have brought the popular festival to the city. They believe this year promises to be one of the best ever, and an estimated 15,000 blues lovers are expected to attend.

“We’ve got a great lineup, and I guarantee this will be one of the best shows to ever hit Rockland,” said Benjamin. The two promoters were last year’s winner of the Blues Foundation’s “Keeping the Blues Alive” award. The Memphis, Tenn.-based foundation’s blues awards recognize nonmusicians for their role in supporting blues music. Rockland now ranks with such legendary blues venues as Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco.

Paul Vorel, publisher of Blues Review, one of the country’s premier magazines devoted to the blues, described the North Atlantic Blues Festival as one of the “hottest, must-attend,” blues festivals in the country. Vorel has attended nearly every one.

Reached at Blues Review editorial offices in Salem, W.Va., last week, Vorel said the combination of the Rockland setting and quality promotion puts the festival among the best on the planet.

“It doesn’t get much better than this,” he said. “There are only a few other festivals that have the ocean as a backdrop, but there isn’t another blues festival in the world that has fresh lobster.”

Vorel noted that Benjamin and Isaacson “have consistently presented a world-class lineup for each year’s festival, but their success has as much to do with professionalism and a laid-back approach as promoters. Nothing seems to faze these guys. Not rain, not broken-down tour buses, nothing. It seems they are having as much fun as the audience.”

Along with the blues festival shows on Saturday and Sunday, downtown Rockland restaurants and clubs also feature bands.

They open their doors early each weekend night for the popular Club Crawl when the city shuts down Main Street and converts it into a pedestrian mall with bands on every corner and sound of the blues coming from each nightspot.

Saturday’s show opens with Anthony Gomes, a Toronto native who now calls Nashville, Tenn., home. Gomes blends the blues with soul, rock and rhythm to create his own brand of American Roots music. He will be followed by the Bubba Mac Blues Band, featuring singer Teri Showers, winner of the Apollo Theater’s “Rookie of the Year” award in 1998. Willie Kent and the Gents comes next, with a Mississippi-influenced sound that Kent has carried nationwide for more than 40 years. E.C. Scott and the Smoke follows with a sound she describes as “blues with a hip-hop flavor and full of soul.” Then comes the Boston Blues Explosion featuring J. Giles, founder of the popular arena rock band, and a solid lineup of blues warriors with years of road experience. Otis Rush will close Saturday’s show with the same blend of power blues he has been playing since he first sat in with the legendary Muddy Waters a half-century ago.

Maine’s own Bonnie Edwards and the Practical Cats will open Sunday’s show with the rocking sound that earned the band first place in the annual “Road to Memphis” competition. Gate Street Blues, one of the hottest blues bands touring New England, will hit the stage next followed by Dawn Tyler Blues Project. Tyler is a legendary shouter with a sound that crosses the boundaries of many musical styles, from roots and blues to jazz and rock. Curtis Salgado performs next with the same guitar-driven sound he showcased as frontman with Roomful of Blues and noted stage presence and patter that actor John Belushi incorporated into his character Jake in the movie “Blues Brothers.” Tommy Castro, another legendary guitar slinger will follow with his own mix of blues, soul and rock. Up next will be Charlie Musselwhite, a harmonica virtuoso who also can wail on guitar and burn on vocals.

Sunday’s closing act, Shemekia Copeland, has been soaring like a rocket since the 1997 release of her first album, “Turn the Heat Up,” recorded when she was 18, the year she made her first appearance at the North Atlantic Blues Festival. Daughter of the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland, Copeland has won four W.C. Handy Awards, five Living Blues Awards, a Grammy nomination and headliner status at the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival.

North Atlantic Blues Festival Schedule July 12-13

Saturday

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Anthony Gomes

12:45-1:30 p.m. Bubba Mac Blues Band

1:45-2:45 p.m. Willie Kent and the Gents, featuring Patricia Scott

3-4 p.m. E. C. Scott and the Smoke

4:15-5:15 p.m. Boston Blues Explosion, featuring J. Giles, Dave Maxwell, Darrell Nulisch and Jerry Portnoy

5:30-6:45 p.m. Otis Rush

Sunday

11-11:30 a.m. Bonnie Edwards and the Practical Cats

11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Gate Street Blues

12:30-1:30 p.m. Dawn Tyler

Blues Project

1:35-2:25 p.m. Curtis Salgado

2:40-3:40 p.m. Tommy Castro

3:55-4:55 p.m. Charlie Musselwhite

5:10-6:25 p.m. Shemekia Copeland