End of Winter Blues Festival returns to Belleville

By Karl Ayotte

Loyalist College is playing a big role in hosting the eighth annual End of Winter Blues Music Festival two-day event on March 9-10.

The Saturday event hosted at the Loyalist Shark Tank is a 10-hour Roots and Blues music show. Ron Foxall, artistic director and event organizers, explains what to expect.

“On Saturday is a mixture of roots and blues music, anything from early blues, acoustic blues to what some people may call classic rock as well as classic blues like Muddy Waters. There will be Jimmy Hendrix thrown in there as well because he was basically a blues player.”

The event will feature local bands from the Loyal Blues Fellowship. Seasoned bands like Fade Kings and Timeline will perform as well as up and comers Linzy McMurtry Band and Blue Suit Jacket. Part-time TV new media professor Victor Cooper is also on the line-up. A total of 15 bands will play on Saturday.

Joe Callahan, coordinator and professor in the journalism, online, print and broadcast program will also play in the event with Tim Campbell. Callahan is on the board of directors for the Loyal Blues Fellowship. He’s expecting more of an older crowd, but he would like to see younger people.

“Blues tends to attract an older crowd usually between 35 and 55, but we’ve got some young performers that play Blues so we might see some younger folks as well,” he said.

Four programs at the College are involved in planning, covering and promoting the event. The business program is managing and planning the event, the general operations during the day and producing a business report at the end of the day.

The culinary program is in charge of cooking a southern flavoured dinner that will be served at 5:30, and the TV program students are filming and making a DVD of the event. The radio program led by Greg Schatzmann, 91x FM station manager, is a sponsor of the event and is in charge of producing commercials.

“91X is a media sponsor for the End of Winter Media Festival and has been for pretty much the entire eighth year it’s been around and in that regard our students are involved in creating the commercials that runs for the event itself from writing it to producing it and voicing it,” Schatzmann explained.

Some of the students will be at the event being master of ceremonies on stage and will live report on the event on air.

The festival will start on Friday night at with a Mardi gras party with Loco Zydeco at Little Texas downtown Belleville. The show starts at 9:30 and the entry fee is $10.

The Saturday event is $25 with a $5 discount of students and entrance is free for children under 14.

Foxall is expecting about 400 to and 500 people for Friday night and 200 to 300 on Saturday. All profits go to the Loyal Blues Fellowship. They host different events in the area.

“They organize various things in the community, like Blues in the school where they bring musicians in public schools and separate schools in the area. They do community jams and they hold a yearly contest to send a representative from the area to the World Championships in Memphis,” Foxall said.