Boogie N' Blues Festival Lineup 2025

With a stunningly soulful sound and amazingly fun live shows, Gracie Curran & The High Falutin’ Band has been wowing audiences from Boston, MA to Beale Street and beyond for over a decade. Since coming together in 2010, the band has released two albums, garnering the attention and praise of critics and fans alike; their original music a blend of blues, soul and the best of Americana, earning a Blues Music Award nomination for Best New Artist and taking home a Boston Music Award for Artist of the Year. Long-time Boston Globe critic Steve Morse called the singer “a force of nature” with a “Mavis Staples-like voice that can raise chills.” Bill Hurley of the California-based The Alternate Root was stirred to describe her as “A five-alarm stew of blues, gospel and soul that burns in your gut like the first time you heard Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Never Loved A Man. Pass the cool water please’” Gracie Curran & The High Falutin’ Band features singer and Fun Captain Gracie Curran, with Chris Hersch on Guitar, Owen Eichensehr on Drums, and Geoff Murfitt on bass.

JP Soars is certainly not a typical Blues musician or a typical musician by any right. He encompasses a multitude of influences. As Soars say’s “for me there are two kinds of music. Good and bad. If it moves me I dig it.” While Soars has been an avid student of the Blues for many years in the late 90’s and early 2000’s he also immersed himself in the complex style of Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz. Soars has been incorporating this style into his own shows for a long time and this certainly helps separate him from the rest of the pack. Add violinist extraordinaire Anne Harris and what you get is, "A magical, almost religious musical experience." The passion she brings to the stage, the excitement in her playing and the sheer power she exudes forces one to stop in their tracks and pay attention.

Blues Super Group featuring:
•Damon Fowler (BMA nominee) - Guitar, vocals.
•Jason Ricci (Four time BMA winner) - Harmonica, vocals.
•Boogie Long (Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee) - Guitar, vocals.
Guitar guru Damon Fowler's music is steeped with soul and representative of the many styles that make up the roots of American music. Harmonica master Jason Ricci is living in his beloved city of New Orleans as one of the most influential, recorded, celebrated, interviewed and famous harmonica players working in the world today. Jonathon “Boogie” Long is the ultimate example of pure talent and musicianship. His powerful and meaningful lyrics, breathtaking guitar riffs, and a dynamic vocal range well beyond his years.

Grammy Nominee & 6 time BMA winner, the Pianna from Savannah, Victor Wainwright and Friends. An intimate evening with Victor and friends with special guests. Though his career began over a decade ago with genuine rock n’ roll honky-tonk, Wainwright has broadened his artistic scope over the years to include music representing virtually every corner of the roots music world. His insatiable interest in music discovery, sheer love for entertaining and curiosity have led him all around the world, and the resulting perspective is a reflection of his passion for entertaining and creating progressive roots music in an effort to move the art-form forward. Composer, producer, vocalist, and award wining entertainer and piano player; Victor Wainwright is a raucous high-octane, dynamic performer and crowd pleaser with soul to spare.

Pat Pepin is a distinguished Maine-based artist known for her exceptional skills as a singer and saxophonist. Her shows are filled with a diverse selection of songs, from blues to Americana, along with her clever original compositions.

Blues & soul power house Jovin Webb is nominated for a BMA award in 2025 for Best Emerging Artist Album. He was a 2020 Top 10 American Idol contestant. Lionel Ritchie said "His voice is what BBque sauce would sound like" Jovin is about to take the blues by storm hailing from Louisiana, he brings the Louisiana soul and gravel to the stage.

Jessica Moore-Hines and Steve Bailey have been playing together for 15 years. They met Mark Horn and Andy Buckland at a Sunday jam and a collaboration was born. Blending elements of Americana with blues and country in their original compositions Crow Stew hopes to test the boundaries of Americana.

2:00 to 2:20 pm, Crow Stew with Pat Pepin

Coming from Canada, Juno award winning artist Angelique Francis is a multi-talented multi-instrumentalist winner of multiple Maple Blues Awards. Francis is serious star power. She plays the audience like a revivalist preacher. Her smoky vocals evoking shades of Bessie Smith and Muddy Waters are reminiscent of a bygone era.

Ray Fuller & the Blues Rockers performance is the promise of " smokin' Hot" Rockin' slide guitar blues. High energy dynamic performances full of fire and and energy backed by Doc Malone on Harmonica, bassist Glen Manual, and drummer Darrel Jumper. Together they bring an unstoppable force of Rockin blues energy.

Billy the Kid is a high powered, guitar driven, rhythm and blues artist widely known across the nation for his impassioned lyrics, seductive vocals, and stinging guitar riffs. Together with Harmonica Slim, they deliver a well-balanced dose of funky rhythm and blues, with heart and soul being the main ingredient.

Second set will include Pat Pepin

Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hell raisers, The masters of Zydeco! Dwayne hails from one of the most influential Zydeco families in the world. Winner of multiple awards including a Grammy, named top 100 reason people come back to Louisiana #29, named hottest accordion in America. Audiences jump to their feet! A Mardi Gras party not to be missed.

Award winning singer songwriter pianist, Eliza Neals is a show stopper at Festivals. Trained in opera but with the grit of KoKo Taylor. Neal's voice is like sand in a velvet bag fired from a shot gun. Sonically this is the kinda nasty Hyper-electrified gut bucket blues that holds your huevos at knife point. Blues rock may be newer of the genre but Neals has made it her niche. Eliza recently won 2 Independent Blues Awards plus her latest album ‘Colorcrimes’ made the first round ballot for the Grammys in seven categories.

A legendary boundary pushing icon of modern blues, Joe Louis Walker is regarded as one of this generations greatest blues men. Walker first picked up the guitar at the age of eight, and became a known quantity within the Bay Area music scene by the age of 16. A musicians musician, Walker has earned his rightful place among the pantheon of legendary blues singer/guitarists/songwriters like BB King, Buddy Guy, and Robert Cray. In 2013, Walker was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame. In addition that year, Walker was nominated in four categories for a Blues Music Award. His album Everybody Wants a Piece (2015) was nominated for a Grammy. In an interview with PatchChord News in early December he shared his philosophy about music, saying, "Don't be afraid to add other cultures into your sound."

9-time BMA Award winner Mike Zito and 5-time BMA award winner Albert Castiglia. The dynamic Duo of guitarists have come together to create the super group "Blood Brothers", one if not the biggest Blues rock bands touring today. In 2024 they won Blues Rock Album of the year at The BMA's. Their live performances are that of legend. Legend has it this may have all started at one Friday night All Star Jam at the Boogie. What we do know is they are back and badder than ever.

The Peoples Queen of Blues
• 3-time BMA Award Winner
• 2023 BMA finalist for the Koko Taylor Award
• 2022 French Academy Couer de Cos Jazz Award Winner
• 2017 and 2014 Winner of the “Koko Taylor Award – Traditional Blues Female”
• 2008 BMA Winner 'Best New Artist Debut' award for Cotton Field to Coffee House.
Her vocals are steeped in Gospel, she commands one of the strongest voices in blues today. This former three-sport athlete earned a college degree, served in the US military, attained corporate employment, completed graduate school, and worked in academia—all before ever gigging in a blues club. Diunna Greenleaf is not only a dynamic performer but also a bandleader who manages her own career. This passionately independent woman has prevailed, touring and recording to global acclaim since she and her band, Blue Mercy, won the 2005 International Blues Challenge.

There’s an undeniable chemistry within Fred Willie Hill, a power trio from Thornton, New Hampshire. The band features Pete Downing on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and vocals, Mike Benton on drums and vocals, and Jacob Benton on bass guitar, vocals, and keys. With a strong focus on developing original music, the band has crafted a sound that is both fresh and deeply rooted in rock tradition—with an obvious nod to the blues.

Sugaray Rayford is a man with a message and a larger than life personality and voice to deliver it. Working with producer, songwriter Eric Corne for the past 3 albums, the pair’s first collaboration, Somebody Save Me, earned Rayford a 2020 Grammy nomination. Later that year he took home Blues Music Awards for ‘Soul Blues Male Artist’ and ‘B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.’ Rayford’s follow up In Too Deep won a plethora of awards including the Blues Music Award for ‘Soul Blues Album of the Year’.

The Juke Joint Devils is an old school Jump Blues and Swing combo whose musical style draws heavily from Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans blues music of the 1950s, as well as the modern West Coast style of today.

3:40 to 4:00 pm, Juke Joint Devils with Pat Pepin

In less than a year singer-guitarist D.K. Harrell catapulted from a blues artist with promise to one of the most sought-after musicians in the blues realm. His debut record, The Right Man on Little Village, won immediate critical raves worldwide upon its release in June 2023 and became the second most-played blues album on U.S. radio in 2023. In 2024 he was honored as Best Emerging Artist in the prestigious Blues Music Awards celebration held by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation. He also will play a stream of major U.S. festivals this year and has five European tours. In all he will play in 10 different countries this year.

Hot on the heels of winning the Blues Foundation 2024 Band of the Year (again!) with Get Your Back Into It!, Chicago native, guitarist and vocalist Nick Moss and New Jersey native, harmonica player and vocalist Dennis Gruenling – together with Rodrigo Mantovani on bass, Taylor Streiff on keyboards and Pierce Downer on drums – deliver a deeply rooted, timeless blue collar blues album. Their first two Alligator albums, 2018’s The High Cost Of Low Living and 2019’s Lucky Guy!, hit blues fans, press and radio by storm. Moss, Gruenling and the band received a total of five Blues Music Awards, with wins in 2020 for Band Of The Year, Song Of The Year (“Lucky ) and Traditional Blues Album Of The Year (Lucky Guy!), and in 2019 for Traditional Blues Male Artist (Moss) and Instrumentalist—Harmonica (Gruenling).