Prairie Crossroads Blues Society

Champaign-Urbana IL

Bunny's Free Pre-Fest Party
4:30 - 11:00 Friday August 13
Painkillers host the Jam 4:30 - 7:30
Cobalt plays 8:00 - 11:00
Bunny's Tavern - 119 E. Water St., Urbana

Blues Fest Lineup - 2021

2021 Main Stage Bands

• Johnny Rawls
• Ivy Ford
• Smiley Tillmon Band featuring Kate Moss
• William Marsala
• Kilborn Alley Blues Band

2021 Solo/Duo Stage

• Gerry Hundt's Legendary One Man Band
• Jesse Cotton Stone

Blues all day - 1:30 to 10:00 pm

Pipa's Free Post-Fest Jam
4:00 - 7:00 Sunday August 15
Jesse Cotton Stone hosts the Jam
Pipa's Pub - 604 S. Country Fair Dr., Champaign

Main Stage

Johnny Rawls
www.johnnyrawlsblues.com

Biography
JOHNNY RAWLS IS A SOUL BLUES LEGEND

Johnny Rawls is a soul blues legend. In fact, the term “soul blues” was invented to describe his music. With a career spanning more than 50 years, he’s done it all. He’s an internationally recognized recording artist, music producer, and songwriter who tours extensively throughout North America and overseas.

The Blues Music Awards, Blues Blast Awards, Living Blues Awards, and the W. C. Handy Awards have all acknowledged Johnny with multiple awards and nominations, including Soul Blues Album of the Year and Soul Blues Artist of the Year. Living Blues Magazine described him as a “soul-blues renaissance man” when he was featured on the cover in 2002. Johnny is honored to be mentioned on two markers along the Mississippi Blues Trail – one in Hattiesburg, MS marking the Hi-Hat Club, and another in Rocklin ME marking the migration of blues from Mississippi to Maine.

Born in Columbia, Mississippi in 1951, Johnny grew up in Purvis (near Hattiesburg) and Gulfport. Johnny’s interest in music began in early childhood. He started out playing clarinet in the school band when he was in 5th grade. Over the next couple of years, he graduated to saxophone, trumpet and other instruments. Johnny became interested in guitar when he heard his grandfather playing one Christmas morning and by age 13 was playing guitar seriously. Johnny’s high school band teacher had a professional band that backed touring soul artists and asked Johnny to join his band as a saxophone player. This began Johnny’s professional career, and at age 15, he was backing artists including ZZ Hill, Little Johnny Taylor, Joe Tex, and The Sweet Inspirations on their tours in the Southeast. In the mid-1970s, Johnny became the band director for soul singer O.V. Wright, and toured with O.V. until his death in 1980. Wright’s band, under Johnny’s leadership, continued to perform as the Ace of Spades band for several years. Then, Johnny became the band director for Little Johnny Taylor.

A true “road warrior,” Johnny tours extensively throughout the US, and internationally, playing approximately 200 dates every year. He’s performed at major blues festivals, including the Chicago Blues Festival and the Waterfront Blues Festival multiple times. Whether he’s playing in a small intimate club or at a large blues festival, Johnny always delivers a high-energy show to the delight of audiences everywhere.

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MISS IVY FORD
www.ivyfordmusic.com
Chicago's Blues Kitten

Ivy Ford versatile, talented, an old soul. From singing the blues to being sultry, she is an indigo artist who's gift connects those who are around her and those who listen. Whether leading a full band or serenading a small audience solo on stage, Ivy Ford commands an energy that is most magical.

Be sure to connect on Facebook, follow us on twitter, instagram and see other performances on youtube....

"Miss Ivy Ford, wise beyond her years,"

Ivy Ford, singer, musician, entertainer. Waukegan born and raised, at 26 she is quite the up and coming artist of the Chicago blues and live music scene. Ivy Ford started performing live with Kenosha based band The Real Deal, managed by Steve Rainey at 13 and since then continues to nurture her niche and calling to the music. She plays piano, alto saxophone, drums, bass guitar and guitar which are primarily self taught. In late 2012, Ford joined a local blues band which in time evolved into Ivy Ford and The Cadillacs and gained fair amounts of popularity.

Fast forward two years and Ivy Ford has managed to take the Chicago scene by storm. In January,2015 Ivy Ford opened for the legend, Buddy Guy at his club in Chicago and continues to share the stage with Chicago blues hall of famers, J.B. Ritchie, Joe Moss, Toronzo Cannon and Tom Holland. She fronts her very own band and besides obtaining the title of "Chicago's Blues Kitten," performs song selections from not just the blues genres but RnB and soul. Aside from performing every weekend at both private and public event, clubs and venues, she is in the process of recording an unplugged album including originals. Some recent event for Ford include, radio shows on 90.9 WDCB, and In a Nutshell radio show on 98.3 WRLR. She's been apart of Buddy Guys Legends, Artist series and traveled to Minneapolis, MN to perform at Artspace's 2013 Celebration at the Cowle Theater. Ivy Ford has been featured in Buddy Guy's Blues and Music News, Lake County Magazine and Blues Guitar Expert's online forum. To follow or check into Ford's shows and happenings go to Ivy on Facebook or Twitter at #MissIvyFord.

Ivy Ford, is one of the leading "youngbloods" of blues and brings a refreshing yet classic face to the music. She formerly handled her cherry red, Epiphone-339 with as much confidence as any of the bluesmen today and can belt out notes to fill a room and serenade a phrase sweeter than sugar in ways that make anyone and everyone tune in to what she has to say. With her latest "Buddy Guy," polka dot stratocastor Ivy Ford, always respects the history and tradition of roots and blues music, while presenting it in a fresh, young and trendy way.

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Smiley Tillmon Band featuring Kate Moss
www.smileytillmonband.com

Biography

One of the busiest blues outfits in Chicagoland, the Smiley Tillmon Band is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. There’s an obvious reason why the veteran guitarist’s booking schedule is so jam-packed: Smiley knows how to have a good time and makes sure his audience does too. After 55 years on the local blues scene, Tillmon serves up the blues and soul standards that people never seem to stop craving, his rich vocals and fluid guitar backed by a band that keeps his grooves tight and right.

Born Moses Tillmon in rural Jefferson County, Georgia, Smiley grew up on a hearty musical diet of gospel, country, and a little blues. His mother moved to Fort Lauderdale when he was ten; there he was exposed to calypso music, adding up to a singular list of influences. Tillmon took up guitar and was good enough by the dawn of the ‘60s to back Miami R&B singer Billy Miranda in the studio. He joined Sammy Ambrose & the Afro-Beats, a calypso-oriented band, touring from Canada to New York. Smiley bid the Afro-Beats adieu in 1962 and moved to Chicago. There he established himself on the blues circuit, playing with Billy “The Kid” Emerson, Denise LaSalle, and other South Side luminaries until he opted for a day job in 1977.

Upon his 2007 retirement, Smiley reverted to full-time musical status. He joined forces with bassist Tom Rezetko, and they’ve been inseparable onstage ever since. Kate Moss shares guitar duties with Tillmon; married to another blues guitar standout, Nick Moss, Kate’s sound is heavily influenced by Freddie King and Magic Sam (she fell in love with the blues at age 21 when she met Buddy Guy, and she’s shared stages with Buddy, Jimmy Johnson, Eddie Shaw, and Lurrie Bell, just to name a few). Drummer George Baumann completes one of the Windy City’s toughest blues combos, one that’ll keep you smiling from ear to ear.

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William Marsala
William Marsala on Facebook

You've heard of blues, you've heard of southern rock... Now meet the William Marsala Band. A hard hitting Southern Blues Rock band out of Central IL

Decatur Herald & Review
by Donnette Beckett
Musician Joe Asselin uses the late blues artist Muddy Waters for describing his group, The William Marsala Band.

“It’s like blues had a baby and named it rock ‘n’ roll,” Asselin said.

The band’s debut CD, “Stuck in the Blues,” will be released on Friday, May 17. (editors note: CD was released in 2019)

Mixing rock ‘n’ roll energy with the blues traditions, bandmates include guitarist Noah Williams, Andrew Hyden on bass, Justin Culp on drums and Asselin on guitar, vocals and harmonica. “When I feel like it,” he said.

The William Marsala Band formed 10 years ago after listening to each other play in different blues bands. Asselin and Williams would often watch each others’ bands before they began playing acoustic shows together. “Eventually we added more people,” Williams said.

The group is influenced by guitarists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck and Duane Allman, as well as other popular musicians. However, the band appreciates the Decatur sound. Members of The William Marsala Band live in Decatur and Champaign.

“Decatur has been massive for us,” Asselin said. “It has been great for music.”

Their style of songwriting and performing incorporates what one might see from their influences.

“It’s high energy with lots of guitar and solid rhythm,” Asselin said. “We come up with the idea and play from the soul.”

Their latest album represents that sound.

William Marsala CD cover "Stuck in the Blues" by The William Marsala Band.

“It’s a mixture of things we all love, soul, blues and rock,” Williams said. “It's not traditional blues. We add a more modern take.”

“Stuck in the Blues” is a compilation of live music, recorded at Dark Matter Printing with Dark Soul Studios in Decatur, Dec 30, 2018. “It’s all live,” Williams said. “Mistakes and all.”

According to Williams, the CD came about by accident. “We were going to shoot a promo video for a show,” he said. “Then we decided to add an audio version and make the CD.”

Culp, the band’s drummer, mixed the music in the studio, but created an album of what an audience member would hear on stage.

“There’s no overdubs,” Asselin said. “The long songs incorporate a lot of fun.”

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Kilborn Alley Blues Band
www.kilbornalley.com

Gritty Chicago Blues

I’m excited to say that Kilborn Alley is the best damn blues band around right now in that tough, gritty, raw classic ‘50/’60s electric Chicago blues ensemble style.
-- Kevin Johnson, Rhythm & News

Amazon review of their album "Four"
You could say that The Kilborn Alley Blues Band are bludgeoning musical boundaries, but it never occurred to them such boundaries exist. You'll hear snippets of the Delta, Chicago, and deep blues, as well as hard funk and sweat-soaked shuffles over the course of this record or at one of their shows. But The Kilborn Alley Blues Band caravan doesn't take you on that musical journey via the direct route. They prefer the more raucous journey found on the backstreets and dirt roads, the kind of adventure that comes from a lifetime commitment to ignoring the rules. 11 great new original tunes round out this fourth Blue Bella Records outing from one of the best blues bands on the scene today.

Amazon Review of "Tolono Tapes" (now on their own Run It Back Records label)
2017 release. Kilborn Alley blasted on to the blues scene in 2006, with award-nominated and winning releases on Nick Moss' Blue Bella Records label. Kilborn is known for their traditional Chicago blues and R&B sounds with a rollicking contemporary sensibility. With seventeen years on the road, The Tolono Tapes is a taste of what happens when Kilborn Alley gets together in the studio with some of the friends they've made in their travels. Jackie Scott stops by to share some sweet R&B, piano man Henry Gray and harp master Bob Corritore lay down some Chicago blues, guitarist Monster Mike Welch and piano guru Anthony Geraci give a fresh take to some Kilborn Alley originals, Ronnie Shellist and Joe Asselin contribute harmonica work on some Kilborn and Scott originals, Corey Dennison and Gerry Hundt lend their blues wizardry to some "in the studio" compositions, and Cerbo raps over "Sure Is Hot."

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Solo/Duo Stage

Gerry Hundt
Legendary One Man Band
www.legendaryonemanband.weebly.com

Gerry on Facebook

MORE BAND THAN MOST

Gerry Hundt is a wunderkind of a blues and old-timey music multi-instrumentalist who plays as many roles as he does instruments, performing as a bandleader as well as a sideman, in full bands, quartets, trios, duos and solo.

But his “Legendary One-Man Band” has become Hundt’s alter ego, just as, say, Spiderman is Peter Parker’s. And to see him in action on his guitar/harmonica/bass drum/snare rig one wonders if Hundt was bitten by a radioactive boll weevil in his youth, enabling him to tear it up on his own terms, transforming from merely Gerry Hundt, musician, into “Gerry Hundt the Legendary One-Man Band,” sprouting stringed instruments, rack attachments and foot devices, and bursting into a set of hot, rag-time blues. I mean, I don’t know, but then there was that time he “went to Colorado,” and came back a full-fledged one-man-band-kind-of a musician. I’m just sayin’.

Okay, then how and why does he do it? Is it just because he can—like chewing gum and walking at the same time—but while solving a Rubik’s Cube, giving a fiery filibuster and dancing a tarantella? You know, there are musicians, and there are performers. And then there are entertainers. Hundt is an entertainer—in the classic sense of “all-in and fully involved.” In the tradition of musical gizmo geniuses Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller, Joe Hill Louis and Dr. Ross, he’s a guitar-pickin’, drum-thumpin’, kazoo-blowin’ kinetic combination of Rube Goldberg, Blind Boy Fuller, the Mississippi Sheiks and a medicine show at a tent revival meeting.

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Jesse Cotton Stone
www.JesseCottonStone.com

Jesse on Facebook

About Jesse

I am a multi-instrumental bluesman with a aptitude for fusing an array of multi-cultural traditions into a universal expression of the human condition.

I've been at it since I was 7 years old. And, have shared stages with world class musicians since beginning my pursuit of musical knowledge and a practical ability to express myself through varying techniques of musical discipline.

I am Trained in North American Blues, Western Classical Music, North Indian Classical Music, Jazz Theory and Improvisational Composition.

The Story

Jesse Cotton Stone weaves together the stylistic threads of definitive regional traditions of Blues Music ranging from North Mississippi Hill Country Blues, Delta Blues, and Cotton Patch Soul Blues to the Urban Chicago Blues Roots of R&B, Soul, Funk, and Psychedelic Rock & Roll, bringing listeners through the doors of a Heart-Wrenching Boutique of Vintage-Toned American Blues Music with the relentless showmanship of a True Entertainer.

He is a Colorado-Born, American Highway-Raised, Blues Man. A 3rd Generation "Carny", he spent the earliest of his years on the Carnival circuit training as a traveling entertainer from his parents and grandfather, who was a balloon clown.

"Though Colorado born, my blues influence was rooted on the banks of the Missouri River, where my Fathers side of our family had migrated from Texas during the Great Depression. We lived many years there throughout my upbringing and spent most summers going to blues clubs, barbecues,juke joints, blues festivals, and National Gospel Choir competitions, throughout the midwest while on the road with the carnival circuit."

While working on the Midwestern carnival circuit with his father, Jesse heard the music of Jimi Hendrix and learned of the influence Blues Music had on his hero. This Experience inspired him to sell his childhood Matchbox Car collection for money to purchase his first electric guitar.

In formative years he had the honor of learning from and sharing greenrooms, jam sessions and concert stages with the likes of B.B. King, Lonnie Brooks, Magic Slim, Honeyboy Edwards, Russell Jackson, Kim Simmons, Jerry Ricks, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, Link Wray, John Jackson, Koko Taylor, Derek Trucks, and the Junior Wells Blues Band, to name a few.

After formal Theory, Harmony, and Ear training in College, Jesse Traveled the World for about a decade, studying different musical traditions including the Classical Music of Northern India under one of the greatest musicians of all time, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

"I realized that, in the 1960s, an evolutionary process of musical expression had begun in America and was continuing through the expansion of modern music with reference to the most traditional form of American music - the Blues."

In 2013, Jesse started his own multi-faceted record label and production company, Gypsy Magik Productions, in his hometown of Manitou Springs, CO., where he currently resides and actively continues writing, developing and producing a catalogue of new original music by the Jesse Cotton Stone Band, collaborative projects, a Blues Remix series, and his post-modern Electro-Industrial Blues Masterpiece, ALGODON - A Multi-Sensory Concept Project based on the musicological evolution of Jesse's influences.

In the Summer of 2015, Jesse visited Clarksdale, MS.-MS.-Birthplace of American Blues Music - for the first time during production of the "Blue Dream Documentary" directed by Charlie Smith of AWEN Productions, which entails the premise of a retrogressive chronological history of the Blues, paralleled with Jesse's own journey of musical Evolution.

His "Juke Spree" tours have included performances at the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, AR., the Juke Joint Festival and Deep Blues Festival in Clarksdale, MS., not to mention the historic Red's Lounge in Clarksdale, MS. and Teddy's Juke Joint in Zachary, LA.

Along the way he has jammed with, learned from, and shared stages with the likes of Cedric Burnside, Tab Benoit, R.L. Boyce, Deak Harp, Mark "Mule Man" Massey, Watermelon Slim, Robert Kimbrough Sr., Lightning Malcolm, Cameron Kimbrough, David Kimbrough,Trenton Ayers, Bill "Howlin' Madd" Perry, and Mickey Rogers.

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Buny's Pre-Fest Party
Happy Hour Jam and Blues Show!
4:30 pm - ???? Friday August 13

Hey thanks to our Sponsor Bunny's we're starting the Fest weekend off on Friday night! The Painkillers Blues Band will host a Jam from 4:30 to 7:30, bring your instrument, your voice or just yourself and enjoy some of the best blues artists in the area. Local Blues favorites, Cobalt Blues Band will play a couple sets that evening from 8:00 to 11:00 pm.

A great prescription for the blues—The Painkillers Blues Band. Painkillers Blues Band on Facebook

“We’ll Play The Blues For You “ says it all. Whether traditional, contemporary or the danceable styles of R&B, Funk and Soul, Cobalt Blues Band is dedicated to blues and nothing but blues. Let our stage show material entertain you." Cobalt Blues Band on Facebook

Thanks to Bunny's this is a Free Event!