PORT TOWNSEND — Fold the spices, the summer-sweet veggies and the succulent meat into a giant pot of stew, let it all blend, and you end up with something more delicious altogether.
That’s what’s going on this week at Fort Worden State Park, as musicians young, old and in between stir their grooves into Centrum’s Acoustic Blues Festival.
The event, which started last Monday with workshops led by music makers from across the country, culminates today and Saturday in some four dozen performances around Port Townsend.
This gathering uses a particular recipe, said Del Rey, the Seattle blueswoman who’s brought her guitar and ukulele into the mix since the first festival in 1992.
“A lot of times, when people say ‘blues,’ people think of something really electric, like rock. But to me, this is something much wider, and a more interesting sound,” said Rey.
Acoustic blues has flavors of the Caribbean, Africa, Louisiana, Mississippi and ragtime, she said. “It’s a really diverse music, and not just one band after another going ‘dun-da-dun-da-dun.'”
Festival-goers discover too that country blues is laced well with humor. “People say to me, ‘I didn’t know the blues was so funny.’ There’s so much lightness in it.”
A quick survey of this year’s players: Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes of New Orleans, who mixes Afro-Caribbean, zydeco and blues on his accordion; David Bromberg of Wilmington, Del., a singer-songwriter known for his comic lyrics; Hook Herrera of San Jose, Calif., a guitarist and harmonica player who celebrates Mexico’s influence on the blues; Washboard Chaz Leary of New Orleans, one of the only pro washboard players on the planet; Suzy Thompson from Berkeley, Calif., a blues violin virtuoso; young MacArthur fellowship recipient Corey Harris; and the Ebony Hillbillies, a black string band that still plays in the New York City subways.
George Rezendes, Port Townsend’s own champion of live blues, is reveling in it all. He’s teaching “Intro to Blues” and ragtime guitar workshops this week and said his pupils — 21-year-old guitarist Eva Walker, for one — have him impressed.
“The excitement of the students is the best,” he said.
Rezendes has also spent some time with Herrera, who demonstrates how Mexican folk music is a close relative of American blues.
Both, Rezendes said, are made out of “three chords and the truth.”
Next, he hailed the Ebony Hillbillies, noting that they’re bringing to town a new, old sound.
“Black string-band music is just starting to grab hold,” he said. “The Ebony Hillbillies are representing a subgenre that’s been buried a long time.”
Henrique Prince is the “lead Billy” who comes from a family of musicians on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the festival program. He grew up around Caribbean, Hawaiian and country styles, and when just a preteen boy taught himself to shuffle on the violin.
“Africans, particularly West Africans, have had string bands for centuries,” Prince said, noting the African ekonting is the banjo’s forebear, and ekonting players in America made the earliest gourd banjos here.
Peter McCracken, program manager of the festival, touted a few more of the players on the roster: Jerron Paxton of Los Angeles, who’s barely into his 20s, and Nathaniel Hawthorne “Nat” Reese, an 86-year-old bluesman from West Virginia.
“He’s a national treasure,” McCracken said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see him again.”
It’s possible to steep yourself in the many permutations, added McCracken, by partaking of the club sessions, the main-stage concerts or a bit of both.
Almost every club is on or close to Water Street, he said, and $25 per night gets you into to any or all. The club venues will have three sets each night, at 9 p.m., 10 and 11 p.m.
Examples: Rezendes plays at the Boiler Room at 9 tonight and the Public House on Saturday at 10 while Rey and Thompson team up at Khu Larb Thai tonight; the Ebony Hillbillies, Sunpie Barnes and Washboard Chaz are playing at Sirens this evening, and Paxton is there Saturday night.
Tonight and Saturday at the Castle Key Restaurant and Lounge, pianist Annieville Blues will play a set, Reese will appear at the Upstage on Saturday, Thompson and Lightnin’ Wells will play at the Undertown on Satur Âday and Wells will meet blues harp player Phil Wiggins on Saturday night at the Public House.
Head spinning? A complete schedule is at www.centrum.org/blues.
Back at Fort Worden, Lightnin’ Wells hosts the Old Songs for Young Folks show at 11 a.m. today in the Fort Worden Chapel; children 3 and older get in free while adults pay $5. That’s soon followed by the Free Fridays at the Fort blues concert at noon on the Fort Worden Commons lawn.
At 7:30 tonight, Wells opens for the David Bromberg Quartet in the McCurdy Pavilion, with tickets ranging from $20 to $39.
Saturday afternoon brings the Down-Home Country BluesFest with the Ebony Hillbillies, Steve James from Austin, Texas, Reese and Wiggins and the Jerron Paxton Band. That party starts at 1:30 p.m. at McCurdy Pavilion, and seats go from $18 to $33.
To buy tickets, phone 800-746-1982 or visit www.Centrum.org.
Whatever your age or hometown, country blues is likely to ring true and familiar, said Rezendes.
Blues is “the foundation of so much modern popular music,” he said. And whether it’s a woman playing her fiddle or a man blowing his harp, “it’s really soulful, heartfelt stuff.”