Itty, Bitty Island Hosting Great Big Bluesmen at the Sanibel Blues & Jazz Festival
The tiny, idyllic island of Sanibel off the Southwest coast of Florida is about to host some big-name talent when internationally acclaimed bluesmen Elvin Bishop and Matt Schofield unleash their blazing guitars at The Sanibel Blues and Jazz Festival on Sunday, November 5.
Now in its second year, the festival will also feature local blues and jazz talents The Marty Stokes Band, 14-year-old blues phenom Johnny Jensen, and The Florida Gulf Coast University Jazz Combo. The show will run from noon until 6 pm in the heart of Sanibel’s village at Bailey’s General Store’s backyard at 2477 Periwinkle Way.
The festivities, including food and beverage booths featuring local restaurants and craft breweries, will kick off at noon with The FGCU Jazz Combo, followed by Johnny Jensen, who began drumming at the tender age of four. Young Jensen, a Sanibel native, discovered the guitar four years ago and counts Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton among his musical influences. He practices his craft locally at his family’s Captiva resort, Jensen’s Twin Palm Cottages and Marina, and at Fort Myers Music Walk, held monthly in the city’s historic river district.
Local favorites The Marty Stokes Band will be warming up the crowd for the night’s headliners performing original songs off their new album Down On My Knees. Marty Stokes, whose family settled on Sanibel in the late 1800s, has been shredding a guitar and singing the blues for the better part of 40 years. He and his band can be found playing gigs up and down Florida’s Southwest coast and were chosen by The Southwest Florida Blues Society to represent the region at the 2017 International Blues Challenge held in Memphis in February.
Last year’s headliner, Matt Schofield, will be returning to the festival again this year, performing right before blues legend Elvin Bishop. A U.K. native and inductee into the British Blues Hall of Fame, Schofield has been blowing away audiences around the world for more than ten years with his own brand of blues peppered with classic jazz, funk, soul and rock. He has traded licks with his heroes Buddy Guy and Robben Ford and will be sure, once again, to slay blues aficionados on Sanibel.
Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio will be closing out the festival with a trip through Bishop’s gritty road to the blues, including stops at the avenues of good-time rock and roll and R&B, and even a detour or two into Zydeco, Gospel and Doo-Wop. His storied career includes recording and performing with B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and Bo Didley and forays into pop with the 1976 hit “Fooled Around And Fell In Love.” In 2015, he was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an original member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and was nominated for a Grammy in 2008.
Tickets for The Sanibel Blues and Jazz Festival are $40 for general admission, $15 for kids under 14 years old, and $125 for VIP access. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the links below.
Sanibel Blues and Jazz
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