A celebration of the blues music genre, the Riverside Bluesfest brings world-class blues musicians to the small city of St. Marys, Ohio, for a two-day concert at the end of the summer.
Food and merchandise vendors add to the carnival atmosphere, and the venue sells adult beverages on-site.
The show takes place on Labor Day weekend. The 2010 festival is the fourth annual Riverside Bluesfest.
The Riverside Bluesfest is a non-profit fund raising project. It is hosted by the K.C. Geiger Park Committee and all proceeds benefit K.C. Geiger Park, St. Marys, Ohio's largest recreational facility. The K.C. Geiger Park Fund is a component fund of the St. Marys Community Foundation, a public charity founded in 1974 to serve the greater St. Marys community.
A group of volunteers called the St. Marys Blues Guild plans and staffs the Riverside Bluesfest. Up to 300 local volunteers contribute their time to staff the festival.
"Riverside" is in a corner of K.C. Geiger Park in St. Marys, Ohio. The festival derives its blues-friendly name from its location on the bank of the St. Marys River.
For the purposes of online mapping, use the address:
- K.C. Geiger Park
100 East Greenville Road
Saint Marys, Ohio 45885
A printable 8.5" x 11" map of St. Marys directing you to the Riverside Bluesfest is available here (also linked at left as "Location Map").
St. Marys is located in west-central Ohio on US Route 33: 10 miles west of Interstate Route 75 (exit 110), 20 miles east of the Indiana state line, 60 miles north of Dayton and 100 miles south of Toledo. Fort Wayne, Indiana is 50 miles northwest of St. Marys on US 33. Columbus, Ohio is 100 miles southeast on US 33.
The Riverside Bluesfest to date has featured blues bands (no solo artists) from the St. Marys area, the state of Ohio and national and world touring groups. Prominent blues artists that have appeared at our festival include:
- 2007 - Lonnie Brooks and Joe Bonamassa
2008 - Ana Popovic and Elvin Bishop
2009 - Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials and The Tommy Castro Band
2010 (scheduled) - Nick Moss and the Flip Tops, The Chris Duarte Group, Shane Dwight and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Artist pages with sound samples are available for past Bluesfest performers through the drop-down menu on the home page.
Bluesfest will bring up to 3,000 music fans here to enjoy an afternoon and evening of 12-bar heaven. Bring your lawn chairs; level seating room will be plentiful between the hill and the stage. Or bring a blanket or towel and enjoy the view from the slope.
05-16-07
Here is the March 17, 2008 press release announcing the Riverside Bluesfest mascot:
ST. MARYS, OHIO -- The St. Marys Blues Guild is resurrecting a local tongue-in-cheek legend, and putting it to work.
More than 60 years ago, a loosely-knit organization known as the “Hunters, Trappers and Traders” operated on and around Lake St. Marys. Fred “Midget” Longsworth was their correspondent to the papers and “Vice President and Cook,” and he wrote a few rambling articles about their rare encounters with a mysterious lake monster.
Described by “Midget” in 1944 as “a big critter, elongated, something like an alligator and yet different; something like a dinosaur of prehistoric days, but different,” the beast breathed smoke from its nostrils and “struck terror into the old HT&T and left them totally unprepared to defend their rights when pies and sandwiches disappeared almost from under their noses.”
The late Evening Leader columnist Hal Miller kept the story alive from the '70s into the '90s, long after the “Hunters, Trappers and Traders” had themselves passed into legend. Miller often wrote of local folklore and talk around town with a wry wit – calling, for instance, the Celina Lighthouse “that Coke bottle on the lake” -- and one of Hal's favorite subjects was the HT&T's fabled creature, known as the Hoedag.
With this press release, the St. Marys Blues Guild is adopting the Hoedag (or, perhaps, one of the original Hoedag's descendants), as the official mascot of the Riverside Bluesfest, held annually on Saturday of Labor Day weekend at K.C. Geiger Park.
“It's a good match,” said Riverside Bluesfest Operations Chairman Chris Botkin. “The blues is made up of equal parts mystery and magic, loneliness and lunacy -- like a nearly forgotten monster. The Hoedag is a St. Marys legend that no group since the 'Hunters, Trappers and Traders' has claimed, and he'll make a great spokescreature for the Riverside Bluesfest.”
If it could talk, that is.
Riverside Bluesfest General Chairman Rees McKee agrees with Botkin on one point. “The Hoedag idea is lunacy, all right,” McKee said. “But it's not costing us anything, so I suppose it can't hurt.”
A preliminary sketch of the new-millennium monster has been roughed out, based on old newspaper accounts and wild-ass guesswork about what a Hoedag in his terrible twos would look like. Without further ado, the St. Marys Blues Guild is happy to introduce the official mascot of the second Riverside Bluesfest: Bo the Hoedag.
In cooperation with the St. Marys Blues Guild, Chicago, Illinois, animator and digital designer Philip Carrera created the featured Hoedag image. See more of Philip's work on his web site: www.grannygoodguns.com.
The 2008 Riverside Bluesfest will be held on Saturday, August 30, 2008, at “Riverside” in K.C. Geiger Park. Tickets will be sold online through TicketWeb.com and will be available in select St. Marys, Ohio and area stores. Additional ticket and artist information TBA.
The Riverside Bluesfest is a fund raising activity of the K.C. Geiger Park Improvement Committee, a private, non-profit organization devoted to the perpetual care of St. Marys, Ohio's largest recreational facility. Proceeds of the Riverside Bluesfest go into the K.C. Geiger Park Fund, a component fund of the St. Marys Community Foundation, which is an IRS-designated public charity. The St. Marys Blues Guild is the Riverside Bluesfest planning and management committee.
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"Lord, I'm going down to Rosedale, Rider by my side.
Lord, I'm going down to Rosedale, Rider by my side.
Well, we can still barrelhouse, babe, On the riverside."
- Traveling Riverside Blues, Robert Johnson.
