BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The Blast Furnace Blues Festival will return to ArtsQuest’s SteelStacks campus for a 10th time Friday, July 21, through Sunday, July 23.
The celebration will feature three free days of blues, roots and soul music.
- Blast Furnace Blues Festival returns to SteelStacks for the 10th time July 21-23
- Headliners will include Bywater Call, The Sensational Barnes Brothers and Toronzo Cannon
- The three-day fest will be outdoors on the Levitt Pavilion and Community Stage on Town Square
Headliners will be Independent Blues Awards nominees Bywater Call and The Sensational Barnes Brothers, who have been featured on a Grammy-nominated album, as well as a solo album by The Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach.
The performances will be outdoors on the Levitt Pavilion at SteelStacks and Community stage on Town Square.
ArtsQuest started its Blast Furnace Blues festival in 2011 as an outdoor, end-of-summer event, but two years later put it on hiatus, saying it had under-performed in crowded seasons of summer festivals.
Over the next five years, ArtsQuest groomed the festival, taking it indoors as a winter, then early-spring, event, and adding top names to headline it.
It finally returned as an outdoor festival in 2019, when it also became a free festival, but then it went on hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The line-up
Local favorites Duwayne Burnside and BC Blue will kick off the festivities starting at 6 p.m. Friday at the Highmark Blue Shield Community Stage.
Bywater Call, a powerhouse seven-piece Southern soul, roots rock band out of Toronto, Canada, will headline the Levitt Pavilion stage that night. It was nominated for the Maple Blues and Independent Blues Awards.
On Saturday, the music resumes on the Highmark Blue Shield Stage with the Nighthawks at 4 p.m., Lionel Young at 6 p.m. and Clarence Spady and the Electric City Band at 9 p.m.
The Sensational Barnes Brothers, a duo known for its album, "Nobody's Fault But My Own," takes the stage at 7:30 p.m. at the Levitt Pavilion.
It has been featured on vocalists Don Bryant’s Grammy-nominated album "Don't Give Up on Love" and The Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach's solo album.
They also are on a new album from Latin Grammy-nominated Making Movies.
Closing out the celebration on Sunday at the Highmark stage are John Primer at 4 p.m. and Kelly Bell Band at 6 p.m.
Acclaimed electric guitarist Toronzo Cannon performs at 7:30 p.m. at the Levitt Pavilion.
Cannon's hits "The Chicago Way," and "Bad Contract," garnered him multiple nominations at the Blues Music Awards.
