Hambone will bring the blues
Published 12:05 pm Saturday, June 13, 2009
A lineup of fresh new faces and local legends will be performing at the 8th Annual Hambone Blues Jam Music Festival June 26-27 at the Holiday Park Golf Course.
In its second year at the site between Austin and Albert Lea, the festival offers camping, vendors, a full bill of blues and rock musicians and even a shuttle bus to the neighboring cities.
Festival board president Lynn Oldre Mortenson said rainy weather last year may have dampened the event, but not the quality of performers. A tent was provided and the attendees still had a good time, she said.
“We felt like it was very successful,” Oldre Mortenson said. “Really, it was more of the weather that was a deterrent.”
Hambone was held the first six years at the Holiday Inn in Austin.
The move to the golf course on Highway 46 near Hayward allows for camping at the adjacent KOA, which attendees were very receptive to last year.
“The golf course is doing a shuttle to the Oak Park Mall (in Austin) and the hotels in Albert Lea,” Oldre Mortenson said. “That’s becoming a trend, to have shuttles offering that service.”
The eighth festival will have many regional musicians; however, the headliners are rising stars in the blues world.
“We got some really young talent this year, which is one of the things we like to do, is catch what you might call rising stars,” Oldre Mortenson said. “Two headliners for Friday and Saturday nights are exactly that case.”
Twin Cities musician Brandon Scott Sellner will perform Friday. Sellner is the Minnesota Road to Memphis winner, and has advanced to the International Blues Challenge next January. Hosted by the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tenn., the competition is revered among blues fans as the ultimate gauge of musical talent in the genre.
Kansas City band Levee Town, finalists of the Blues Challenge, will headline the festival Saturday night. They played for earlier Hambone fundraising concerts in Austin and Albert Lea, which were held to compensate for lower attendance last year.
When: 6 p.m. to midnight, Friday, June 26; noon to midnight, Saturday, June 27
Where: Holiday Park Golf Course, Highway 46, Hayward, Minn.
Lineup: Brandon Scott Sellner will headline Friday and Levee Town will headline Saturday; others include Plan B, Black Cat Bone, Dave Lambert and many more.
Tickets: Two-day passes are $15 if purchased before June 25 at Piggy Blues in Austin and Albert Lea; the Austin and Albert Lea chambers of commerce; and Bluestem Graphics in Rochester. Tickets are $10 per day at the gate.
Accommodations: Countryside Inn Motel in Albert Lea, KOA Campground adjacent to golf course. Shuttle service available to Albert Lea and Austin for a fee.
“They’re just incredible musicians,” Oldre Mortenson said.
Other acts this year include: Lisa Wenger Band, Twin Cities; Dave Lambert Band, La Crosse, Wis.; Wonder Creek Band, Spillville, Iowa; Doghouse John & The Misbehavers, Rochester; Plan B, Austin; Paul Mayasich Band, Twin Cities; Cool Disposition, Twin Cities; Everett Smithson Band, Twin Cities; Joe and Vicki Price, Lansing, Iowa; Black Cat Bone, Rochester; and The Gopher Tones, Rochester.
Food vendors will include Piggy Blues Bar-B-Que of Austin and Albert Lea, La Quinta Inn of Rochester and other concessions, including Carter Rosenthal’s Mississippi mud pies stand. “It’s going to be a nice eclectic offering of food,” Oldre Mortenson said.
“It promises to just be a really fun day,” she said. “Laid back, welcoming, warm group of people. If you are a music lover, of course it is just fantastic music. It’s a very worthwhile event.”
Two-day passes are $15 if purchased before June 25 at Piggy Blues in Austin and Albert Lea; the Austin and Albert Lea chambers of commerce; and Bluestem Graphics in Rochester. Tickets are $10 per day at the gate.
Festival profit over the operating costs will be donated to local school music programs.
For more information about the lineup of musicians and a schedule of events, visit hambonebluesjam.com.