The Waterville Rotary Blues, Brews and Brats festival will be staged Saturday July 31 from 5:30-11:30 p.m. in downtown Waterville.
Presented in conjunction with Third Street Cigar, the festival raises money to support Rotary projects including Waterville park and area beautification projects, scholarships, YMCA Kid Zone, medical equipment and supplies abroad, and local and international clean water projects.
There will food vending trucks including Grumpy’s, Deets BBQ, Manny’s Munchies, and brats served by the Bowling Green Rotary.
Festivalgoers are encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs.
The festival lineup features: Ronnie Baker Brooks, Selwyn Birchwood, and Johnny Rawls.
Tickets are $15 at the gate.
Brooks released his debut album “Golddigger,” produced by Janet Jackson, in 1998. He was nominated in 2000 for Best New Artist in the Blues Music Award.
In 2012, the blues journalist David Brais declared Brooks “blues royalty,” stating that “his particular style of Chicago blues has been performed on stages around the world. It honors the true torch bearers of this unique sound which includes Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Luther Allison and his father.”
Birchwood is an American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter from Tampa, Florida,. He was the winner of the Blues Foundation2013 International Blues Challenge in the band category, as well the winner of the event’s Albert King Guitarist of the Year award. To win, he bested 125 competitors from around the world. Birchwood plays electric guitar and electric lap steel guitar.
Rawls is a blues singer, guitarist, arranger, songwriter and record producer who has released more than fifteen albums under his name. He was influenced by the deep soul music of the 1960s but his style, production and lyrics are more contemporary. Rawls’ album, “I’m Still Around” (Third Street Cigar Records, Waterville. Ohio), was named as the Blues Music Awards’ Soul Blues Album of the Year” in 2019.
