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FYI

RBC Bluesfest Turns 25 In Grand Style

It turns 25 this year, and RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa is well-established as one of the nation's biggest and best annual summer festivals.

RBC Bluesfest Turns 25 In Grand Style

By FYI Staff

It turns 25 this year, and RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa is well-established as one of the nation's biggest and best annual summer festivals. Its 2019 lineup is typically star-studded and stylistically eclectic. Blues giant Buddy Guy and Canadians Sue Foley, Matt Andersen, and Dawn Tyler Watson represent the blues, but that genre is now just a small dish in the musical smorgasbord on offer.


Major headlining names taking to the stages at LeBreton Flats Park, July 4-14, include The Killers, Snoop Dogg, Logic, Backstreet Boys, The Offspring, Kygo, CHVRCHES, Wu-Tang Clan, Alexisonfire, Eric Church, First Aid Kit, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

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Adding even more musical variety are the likes of Elle King, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Pussy Riot, Guided By Voices, Psychedelic Furs, James, and Little Steven & the Disciples Of Soul.

The Canadian contingent includes The Dirty Nil,  Charlotte Cardin, K'Naan, Lennon Stella, PUP, Colter Wall, The Trews, William Prince, U.S. Girls, Francesco Yates, The Sorority, The Sheepdogs, Abigail Lapell, and more. 

In all, more than 100 acts perform on four stages this year. In an interview with Postmedia's Lynn Saxberg,  Bluesfest’s artistic and executive director Mark Monahan explains that "In the past, the vision was just to have as many different things on the same night to give everybody something. But we’ve done it more by stage this year, so you don’t get a completely different audience from one act to another.”

A limited number of festival passes are available in a one-day presale that runs from 10 a.m. to midnight Thursday. Regular sales, including single-day tickets, and three-day and five-day passes, start at 10 a.m. Friday. Details here 

A full fest lineup here

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Lou Christie
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Lou Christie

FYI

Obituaries: '60s Pop Idol Lou Christie Passes Away at 82

This week we also acknowledge the passing of New York City rock photographer Marcia Resnick, reggae star Leroy Gibbons and South African jazz drummer Louis Moholo.

Lou Christie (Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco), one of the most beloved teen pop idols of the 1960s and the voice and songwriter behind Billboard Hot 100-topper “Lightnin’ Strikes,” died on June 18, after a long illness. He was 82 years old.

ABillboard obituary reports that the Pennsylvania-born singer "Christie soared to fame in the early ’60s with hits such as 'The Gypsy Cried' and 'Two Faces Have I,' the latter of which reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 in 1963. The star’s biggest hit came three years later, when 'Lightnin’ Strikes' ascended to the chart’s summit, but he would still score a top 10 smash years later in 1969 with 'I’m Gonna Make You Mine.'"

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