Blues on the Fox: Aurora music festival gains international acclaim

By Cathy Janek for Chronicle Media

Samantha Fish, recently named Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year at the Blues Foundation’s 39th Annual Blues Music Awards, will perform on Friday at Aurora’s Blues on the Fox.

It began as a small street festival on Galena Boulevard in downtown Aurora more than 20 years ago.

Now in its 22nd year, Aurora’s annual Blues on the Fox Festival has grown into an internationally recognized event.

The Blues returns to RiverEdge Park this weekend with more than 4,000 fans expected for Friday’s opening night and between 7,500 to 8,000 projected on Saturday, according to Jim Jarvis, the facility’s vice president of sales and programming.

Friday features an all-female lineup.

Samantha Fish, recently named Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year at the Blues Foundation’s 39th Annual Blues Music Awards, will return to the festival on Friday.

She was opening act at the 2014 Blues on the Fox event.

“She is an amazingly talented guitar player,” Jarvis said.

Elle King, a new face to the festival, will follow Fish on Friday night.

King, best known for her Billboard Top ten hit “Ex’s and Oh’s” also has “blues, rock, soul, and country” in her repertoire.

On Saturday, the fest opens with 14-year-old Brandon “Taz” Niederauer.

Niederauer learned to play guitar when he was just 8-years-old after being inspired by the School of Rock movie.

Niederauer went on to star in the lead in the Broadway production of School of Rock.

He also performed a guitar solo in NBC’s recent live television broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Toronzo Cannon, a Chicago bus driver during the day and performer by night, will follow Niederauer.

Cannon still drives a bus because it is his way to connect with life, he added.

Sonny Landreth and Aaron Neville will round out the night.

Jarvis said Eric Clapton called  Sonny Landreth the most advanced guitarist in the world and one of the most under appreciated.

With a music career that spans 50 years, Neville is closing the night, he added. 

“We are excited about the diversity of talent,” Jarvis said. 

The festival began as a tribute to the Leland Bluebird recordings that were made in the late 1930s in Aurora at the Sky Club at the top of the Leland Hotel, David Glynn, Fox Valley Music Foundation said. 

The recordings featured a number of artists that “were very popular in the day,” he said.  “Those recordings are jewels.”

In the festival’s early years the organizers brought back to Aurora some of the original recording artists, Glynn said.

In 1999, Henry Townsend, one of the original recording artists on the Bluebird recordings, performed at the festival.

Townsend is among an amazing list of performers, both local and internationally known artists, who have performed over the years at the festival, Glynn added.

Steve Warrenfeltz, president of the Fox Valley Music Foundation said if it wasn’t for a group of Blues enthusiasts who brought the significance of these early recordings to city officials’ attention in Aurora, “I’m not sure this festival would have ever gotten to this point.”

In the early years, the festival was “an intimate, downtown street based festival” run largely by volunteers, he added.

Warrenfeltz who has owned Batavia record story Kiss the Sky, a Batavia for more than 20 years, said his involvement with the festival has ranged from being a vendor at the event to being a part of the committee which ran it. 

“Pretty early in the festival’s history you could see that it wasn’t going to remain a small festival for very long,” Warrenfeltz said.

As the festival grew, the event began to book more prominent Blues names and as a result larger crowds appeared.

In 2013, RiverEdge Park opened and became the new home to the festival with Dr. John and Buddy Guy headlining the event.

RiverEdge Park is the perfect venue for this festival and helped catapult the event to one of the premier Blues festivals in the country, Warrenfeltz said. 

If You Go:

22nd Annual Blues on the Fox Festival

Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16

RiverEdge Park, Aurora.

Tickets: $30 per day.

FRIDAY, JUNE 15

Gates open: 6 p.m. 

7 p.m.  Samantha Fish 

9 p.m.  Elle King 

SATURDAY, JUNE 16

Gates open: 2 p.m. 

3 p.m.  Brandon “Taz” Niederauer

5 p.m.   Toronzo Cannon

7 p.m. Sonny Landreth

9 p.m.  Aaron Neville

 

–Blues on the Fox: Aurora music festival goes from low-key street festival to international acclaim–