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Blues Festival draws thousands

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By Thomas Geyer | Friday, July 04, 2008 |

Andrew Duncanson, left, and Josh Stimmel of the Kilborn Alley Blues Band starts off the IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival on the main stage Thursday at Pershing and 2nd streets in Davenport. (Andrew Link/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

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Blues Festival: Day 1

Local blues harmonica player Sammy Man Range and his wife, Jacque, of Rock Island seated themselves Thursday in the shade of a tree at the corner of 2nd Street and Perry Avenue in Davenport.

The trunk of the tree blocked Sammy’s view of the stage on which Kal David was setting up to play at the 24th annual IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival. But not being able to see the stage didn’t bother Sammy at all.

“Blues ain’t too much of a visual thing,” Sammy Range said. “The blues is in here,” he added, pointing to his heart. “You don’t need to see it. You just need to listen to it.”

A crowd of several thousand walked through the gates Thursday night, many with lawn chairs over their shoulders and coolers in tow.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 people are expected to walk through the gates between Thursday and Saturday, the last day of the festival, said Rebekah McCaw of the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. “We’re hoping for more this year, given the price of gasoline.”

The festival runs the length of 2nd Street from Brady Street to Perry Avenue.

McCaw said July 4 is a great time to have the festival, given that blues is a uniquely

American musical genre.

The festival had to be moved from LeClaire Park because of the recent floods.

“I’m glad they didn’t have it at the airport again,” said Carolyn Clay of Davenport, who with her sister, Barbara Wommack, has never missed a blues festival. Clay was referring to the 1993 flood that pushed the festival to the Davenport Municipal Airport.

Wommack loves the festival so much she even has her first T-shirt from the first festival.

While all the performers are good, Wommack said she was looking forward to Koko Taylor, who’s scheduled to perform tonight at 10 p.m., and Denise LaSalle at 8 p.m. Saturday.

The normal tent performers have been moved to the Adler Theater. The air-conditioned venue is a lot cooler than the tent ever could be and the seating is much more comfy.

Heading into the Adler to catch blues performers Steve James and Del Rey were David and Koreen Luerkens of Iowa City.

It is Koreen’s first Blues Festival, while David, she said, “came down here often with the guys.”

Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.