Deanna Bogart's first appearance at the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest five years ago was so successful that a local Davenport club whose name she can't remember - but based on the general location and description, we think it might have been Boozie's Bar & Grill - invited her to play a gig.
When asked what message he hopes to convey with his music, the acclaimed singer, songwriter, guitarist, and social activist Willie King has a simple yet profound answer: "Love. To love everybody and have respect for everybody.
Beverly "Guitar" Watkins learned to play and sing the blues in a small town in Georgia. "Commerce" was its name. It was here at the age of eight (more than 50 years ago) that she received her first guitar as a Christmas present.
Douglas Ewart works with his hands, and that's not just because he's a musician. The Chicago-based Ewart not only composes and plays but builds his own instruments, creates artwork for performances, and designs and makes the costumes for himself and his band.
Magic Slim is somebody who refuses to be denied. He started out playing piano, but in a cotton-gin accident he lost a finger on his right hand - "the main finger," he said - and couldn't manage the instrument. Also when he was a child, he built a guitar with baling wire from a broom, and "my momma beat my ass," Magic Slim said in a recent phone interview.
The purpose of the RiverRoad Award (as the Mississippi Valley Blues Society [MVBS] "a river runs through it" guitar logo attests) is to honor those artists who have devoted their lives to bringing what we call "river" blues - music that runs deep with emotion, like a river of the soul - to anyone they meet on life's highways.
A.C. Reed: 1989 Aaron Moore: 1997 Albert Collins: 1993 Algia Mae Hinton: 2001 Alley Gaiters: 1986 Alvin "Little Pink" Anderson: 2002 Alvin Youngblood Hart: 1998, 2002 Andy Bush: 1993 Ann Peebles: 1992 Ann Rabson: 1999, 2004 Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets Featuring Sam Meyers: 1988, 1995 Anthony Gomes: 2001 Archie Edwards: 1993 Armstrong, Bogan, & Armstrong: 1989 Aron Burton & Jack Johnson: 1995 Audrey & The Blue Kats: 1991 B.
The Tablerockers - 5 p.m. The current band is based in northwest Arkansas and premiered in December of 2001. It features Jason Davis on guitar and vocals, Texas native David Watson on drums, and Larry Boehmer on bass.
Joe Price - 5 p.m. Joe Price comes from Waterloo, where he first began to play slide guitar using a slide he sawed from the handlebars of a neighbor's bike. Pretty old-school for an Iowa boy. He found his way to Iowa City, where he managed to solidify his craft when blues legends such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Honey Boy Edwards, and Hound Dog Taylor passed through town on their Midwest tours.
The Mercury Brothers - 2 p.m. The Mercury Brothers are Memphis-bound in early 2006 to compete in the International Blues Challenge after winning the local blues challenge and the Iowa Blues Challenge.

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