The East Coast International Blues & Roots Music Festival, also known as Byron Bay Bluesfest, is an annual music festival held for five days over the Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 long weekend at Byron Bay

Byron Bay, New South Wales

Byron Bay is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjacent to the town, is the easternmost point of mainland Australia. At the 2006 Census, the town had a...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It features a large selection of blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and roots

American Roots Music

American Roots Music is a 2001 multi-part documentary film that explores the historical roots of American Roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement: Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, and many others....

 performers, both international and Australian.

History

The festival began in 1990 as a four day indoor event at The Arts Factory in Byron Bay, drawing a capacity crowd of 6,000 people in its first year. The event moved outdoors to Belongil Fields (1993–1996), then Red Devil Park (1997–2007), where in 2007 capacity was 16,000 attendees a day. The festival moved back to Belongil Fields in 2008–09. After running four stages for some years, it has run five stages since 2008. In 2010 the event moved to a new permanent home at Tyagarah, about 15 minutes drive north of Byron Bay. On most days performances begin around noon and end at midnight.

The festival won the Robert Helpmann Award for Best Contemporary Music Festival in Australia for 2004 and 2005. It was a finalist in the US-based Pollstar Concert Industry Awards for two years, placing the festival alongside names like Montreux

Montreux Jazz Festival

The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...

 and Glastonbury.

In December 2004, Keven Oxford, a director and founder of the event, left the festival and sold his 50% share of the company to a consortium comprising Michael Chugg (managing director of Sydney-based Michael Chugg Entertainment), Daryl Herbert (CEO of Melbourne-based Definitive Events) and Glenn Wheatley

Glenn Wheatley

Glenn Dawson Wheatley is an Australian artist manager and entertainment industry executive.Wheatley began his career as a musician in Brisbane in the mid-1960s and in the late 1960s became nationally famous as a member of leading pop-rock band The Masters Apprentices...

 (CEO of Melbourne-based Talentworks), who ran the festival with co-founder Peter Noble. Noble bought out the consortium in 2008 and now owns the festival alone.

The festival has sister events including West Coast Blues & Roots Festival

West Coast Blues & Roots Festival

The West Coast Blues 'n' Roots Festival is an annual music festival held in Fremantle, Western Australia. It features many blues and roots performers, both international and local.-History:...

, put on by Sunset Events in Western Australia, and the Point Nepean Music Festival which ran in Victoria in 2008, which feature similar artists.

2007

The line-up for the 2007 festival included:http://www.bluesfest.com.au/lineup2007.html

• Rodriguez
  Sixto Diaz Rodriguez
  Sixto Diaz Rodriguez is an American folk musician, born in Detroit, Michigan on . He was named 'Sixto' because he was the sixth child in his family. Rodriguez's parents were middle-class immigrants from Mexico, who left in the 1920s...
  
  
• Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
• John Mayer
  John Mayer
  John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
  
  
• Missy Higgins
  Missy Higgins
  Melissa "Missy" Morrison Higgins is an Australian pop singer-songwriter, musician and actor. Her No. 1 albums in Australia are The Sound of White and On a Clear Night , and her Top Ten singles are "Scar", "The Special Two", "Steer" and "Where I Stood". From a musical family in...
  
  
• Wolfmother
  Wolfmother
  Wolfmother is an Australian rock band from Erskineville, Sydney. Formed in 2000, the group was originally a trio composed of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bassist and keyboardist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett. Wolfmother released their self-titled debut album in October 2005,...
  
  
• Bela Fleck
  Béla Fleck
  Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...
  
   and the Flecktones
• Bonnie Raitt
  Bonnie Raitt
  Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
  
  
• Bo Diddley
  Bo Diddley
  Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
  
  
• Taj Mahal
  Taj Mahal (musician)
  Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
  
  
• Tony Joe White
  Tony Joe White
  Tony Joe White is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his 1969 hit "Polk Salad Annie"; "Rainy Night in Georgia", which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970; and "Steamy Windows", a hit for Tina Turner in 1989...
  
  
• The Roots
  The Roots
  The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
  
  
• Kasey Chambers
  Kasey Chambers
  Kasey Chambers is an Australian country singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers, and the sister of musician and producer Nash Chambers.-Solo success:...
  
  
• John Butler Trio
  John Butler Trio
  The John Butler Trio are an eclectic roots and jam band from Australia led by guitarist and vocalist John Butler. They formed in Fremantle in 1998 with Jason McGann on drums and Gavin Shoesmith on bass guitar...
  
  
• Fat Freddys Drop
• Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
  Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
  Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars is a band from Sierra Leone which was formed by a group of refugees displaced to Guinea during the Sierra Leone Civil War. Since their return to Freetown in 2004, the band has toured extensively to raise awareness for humanitarian causes...
  
  
• Fishbone
  Fishbone
  Fishbone is a U.S. alternative rock band formed in 1979 in Los Angeles, California, which plays a fusion of ska, punk rock, funk, hard rock and soul. Critics have noted of the band: "Fishbone was one of the most distinctive and eclectic alternative rock bands of the late '80s...
  
  
• Gomez
  Gomez (band)
  Gomez are an English indie rock band from Southport, comprising Ian Ball , Paul "Blackie" Blackburn , Tom Gray , Ben Ottewell and Olly Peacock . The band is distinguished for having three singers and four songwriters, employing traditional and electronic instruments...
  
  
• Fred Eaglesmith
  Fred Eaglesmith
  Frederick John Elgersma , known by the stage name Fred Eaglesmith, is a Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter, one of nine children raised by a farming family in rural Southern Ontario. As a teenager Eaglesmith hopped a freight train out to Western Canada, and began writing songs and...
  
  
• Kieran Kane
  Kieran Kane
  Kieran Kane is an American country music artist, as well as the owner of Dead Reckoning Records, an independent record label. Between 1986 and 1990, he and Jamie O'Hara comprised The O'Kanes, a duo which charted seven singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles charts, including the Number...
  
   & Kevin Welch
  Kevin Welch
  Kevin Welch is an American country music artist. He has charted five singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and released eight studio albums...
  
   with Fats Kaplin
• Feist
  Leslie Feist
  Leslie Feist , known professionally as simply Feist, is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, both as a solo artist and as a member of the indie rock group Broken Social Scene....
  
  
• The Waifs
  The Waifs
  The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 by Josh Cunningham , and sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson...
  
  
• Ben Kweller
  Ben Kweller
  Ben Kweller is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.-Early life:Ben Kweller was born in San Francisco, CA in 1981. In 1982, his family relocated to Emory, Texas, where his father, Howard Kweller, became the town's first doctor. In 1986, the Kwellers moved to a much larger city,...
  
  
• Flogging Molly
  Flogging Molly
  Flogging Molly is a seven-piece Irish-descendant band from Los Angeles, California, that is currently signed to their own record label, Borstal Beat Records.-Early years:...
  
  
• Xavier Rudd
  Xavier Rudd
  Xavier Rudd is an Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in 1978 and grew up in Torquay, Victoria. He attended St. Joseph's College, Geelong....
  
  
• The NEO
• Pappa Jam

2008

The 2008 festival was held at the 26 acres (105,218.4 m²) Belongil Fields, the original outdoor venue. The 2008 festival had more food and craft stalls, a covered area where festival goers could eat at tables, a chill-out area, plus an area for an additional, fifth stage.

Artists in 2008 included Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy

George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...

, Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe

Eskimo Joe is an Australian alternative rock band formed by Stuart MacLeod on guitars, Joel Quartermain on drums and guitar and Kavyen Temperley on bass guitar and vocals, in East Fremantle, Western Australia in 1997....

, The John Butler Trio, The Beautiful Girls

The Beautiful Girls

The Beautiful Girls are an Australian band, predominantly playing roots music. They have released three EPs, Morning Sun, Goodtimes and Weight Of The World. Plus four full length albums, Learn Yourself, We're Already Gone, Ziggurats and Spooks. They played at Dusty Days on 15 March 2008 in Wagga...

, Newton Faulkner

Newton Faulkner

Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner is an English singer-songwriter and musician from Reigate, Surrey. Known for his guitar playing, which involves rhythmically tapping and hitting his guitar's body, Faulkner came to prominence in 2007, with the release of his debut studio album, Hand Built by Robots...

, Seasick Steve

Seasick Steve

Steven Gene Wold, commonly known as Seasick Steve, is an American blues musician. He plays guitars, and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work.-Childhood and early life:...

, Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...

, Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers, her family's band.-Biography:...

, John P. Hammond

John P. Hammond

John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...

, John Hiatt

John Hiatt

John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...

, Ray Davies

Ray Davies

Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...

, Maceo Parker

Maceo Parker

Maceo Parker is an American funk and soul jazz saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s, as well as Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s. Parker was a prominent soloist on many of Brown's hit recordings, and a key part of his band, playing alto, tenor and baritone saxophones...

, Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Snowden Wainwright III is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle.To...

, MOFRO

MOFRO

JJ Grey & MOFRO is a soul/funk/R&B/blues/southern rock band from Jacksonville, Florida composed of JJ Grey , Andrew Trube , Anthony Farrell , Anthony Cole and the "Hercules Horns" Dennis Marion , Art Edmaiston JJ Grey & MOFRO (formerly billed just as Mofro) is a soul/funk/R&B/blues/southern...

, Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster is an American singer-songwriter of blues and folk music.Foster is from Gause, Texas and comes from a family of gospel singers. She studied music at McLennan Community College and then worked in the US Navy, where she started performing. Her debut was released in 1997 and she has...

, Jake Shimabukuro

Jake Shimabukuro

Jake Shimabukuro is an ukulele virtuoso known for his complex finger work. His music combines elements of jazz and rock.- History :...

 and Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd

Xavier Rudd is an Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in 1978 and grew up in Torquay, Victoria. He attended St. Joseph's College, Geelong....

.

2011

The line-up for the 2011 festival included:

• Bob Dylan
  Bob Dylan
  Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
  
  
• B. B. King
  B. B. King
  Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...
  
  
• Grace Jones
  Grace Jones
  Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...
  
  
• Ben Harper
  Ben Harper
  Benjamin Chase "Ben" Harper is an American singer-songwriter and musician. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock music and is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances and activism. Harper's fan base spans several continents...
  
   and Relentless7
  Relentless7
  Relentless7 is an American rock band formed in 2008 by singer/guitarist Ben Harper. The current members are Harper , Jason Mozersky , Jesse Ingalls , and Jordan Richardson .-History:...
  
  
• Elvis Costello and the Imposters
• Leon Russell
  Leon Russell
  Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
  
  
• George Clinton
  George Clinton (musician)
  George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...
  
   and Parliament-Funkadelic
  Parliament-Funkadelic
  Parliament-Funkadelic is a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums...
  
  
• Jethro Tull
  Jethro Tull (band)
  Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
  
  
• ZZ Top
  ZZ Top
  ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...
  
  
• John Legend
  John Legend
  John Roger Stephens , better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career...
  
  
• Michael Franti and Spearhead
• Gurrumul
  Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
  Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an Indigenous Australian musician, who sings in the Yolngu language.He was born in Galiwin'ku , off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia about 350 miles from Darwin. He is from the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu and his mother from the Galpu nation...
  
  
• Toots and the Maytals
• Luciano and Jah Messenjah Band
  Luciano (singer)
  Luciano is a Jamaican second generation roots reggae artist and poet....
  
  
• Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Aaron Neville
  Aaron Neville
  Aaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...
  
  
• Paul Kelly
  Paul Kelly (musician)
  Paul Maurice Kelly is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor...
  
  
• Buffy Sainte-Marie
  Buffy Sainte-Marie
  Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
  
  
• Warren Haynes and his Allstar Band
  Warren Haynes
  Warren Haynes is an American rock and blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. Haynes is best known for his work as long time guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey...
  
  
• Rodrigo y Gabriela
  Rodrigo y Gabriela
  Rodrigo y Gabriela , also known as "El Rodri y La Gabi", are a Mexican musical duo who specialize in playing fast, rhythmic acoustic guitars...
  
  
• Fistful of Mercy
  Fistful of Mercy
  Fistful of Mercy is a rock group consisting of Dhani Harrison, Ben Harper and Joseph Arthur.-History:The band formed in February 2010, when Arthur asked Harper to accompany him in the studio; Harper then asked Harrison, whom he had met at a skate park in Santa Monica, California, to accompany them...
  
  
• Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Band
  Tedeschi Trucks Band
  The Tedeschi Trucks Band, formerly known as the Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Band is a blues rock group based in Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 2010, the band is led by husband-and-wife musicians Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, and primarily features members from their respective solo groups.-...
  
  
• Imogen Heap
  Imogen Heap
  Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap is a Grammy Award-winning English singer, composer and songwriter from Havering, Essex. She is known for her work as part of the musical duo Frou Frou and her solo albums, which she writes, produces, and mixes...
  
  
• Ernest Ranglin
  Ernest Ranglin
  Ernest Ranglin O.D. is a Jamaican guitarist and composer. Best known for his session work at the famed Studio One, Ranglin helped give birth to the ska genre in the late 1950s...
  
  
• Robert Randolph and the Family Band
• The Cat Empire
  The Cat Empire
  The Cat Empire are an Australian ska and jazz band formed in 1999. Core members are Harry James Angus , Will Hull-Brown , Jamshid "Jumps" Khadiwhala , Ollie McGill , Ryan Monro and Felix Riebl...
  
  
• Mavis Staples
  Mavis Staples
  Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers, her family's band.-Biography:...
  
  
• Kasey Chambers
  Kasey Chambers
  Kasey Chambers is an Australian country singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of steel guitar player Bill Chambers, and the sister of musician and producer Nash Chambers.-Solo success:...
  
  
• Clare Bowditch
  Clare Bowditch
  Clare Bowditch is an Australian musician from Melbourne, Victoria. She released her fourth album Modern Day Addiction via Island Records on 13 August 2010. It became both 3RRR Album of the Week and ABC Radio National's Album of the Week. MDA is the first of Bowditch's album's to enter the Top Ten...
  
  
• Little Feat
  Little Feat
  Little Feat is an American rock band formed by singer-songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles....
  
  
• Indigo Girls
  Indigo Girls
  The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
  
  
• Osibisa
  Osibisa
  Osibisa is a British Afro-pop band, founded in London in 1969 by four expatriate African and three Caribbean musicians. Osibisa were one of the first African bands to become widely popular, leading to claims of founding World Music.-History:...
  
  
• Tim Finn
  Tim Finn
  Brian Timothy "Tim" Finn, OBE is a New Zealand singer and musician. Finn is most known for his music with New Zealand 1970s and 1980s rock group Split Enz, and later for his solo work, a temporary membership in his brother Neil's band Crowded House and his joint efforts with Neil Finn as the Finn...
  
  
• Raúl Malo
  Raul Malo
  Raúl Francisco Martínez-Malo Jr. , known professionally as Raúl Malo, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and record producer. He was the lead singer of country music band The Mavericks and the co-writer of many of their singles, as well as Rick Trevino's 2003 single "In My Dreams"...
  
  
• Wolfmother
  Wolfmother
  Wolfmother is an Australian rock band from Erskineville, Sydney. Formed in 2000, the group was originally a trio composed of vocalist and guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bassist and keyboardist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett. Wolfmother released their self-titled debut album in October 2005,...
  
  
• Xavier Rudd
  Xavier Rudd
  Xavier Rudd is an Australian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in 1978 and grew up in Torquay, Victoria. He attended St. Joseph's College, Geelong....
  
  
• Funky Meters
  The Meters
  The Meters are an American funk band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Meters performed and recorded their own music from the late 1960s until 1977...
  
  
• Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue
  Troy Andrews
  Troy Andrews , also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty is a trombone and trumpet player from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. He has worked in jazz, funk and rap music. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews as well as the grandson of singer and...
  
  
• Irma Thomas
  Irma Thomas
  Irma Thomas is an American Grammy Award-winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans"....
  
  
• Fishbone
  Fishbone
  Fishbone is a U.S. alternative rock band formed in 1979 in Los Angeles, California, which plays a fusion of ska, punk rock, funk, hard rock and soul. Critics have noted of the band: "Fishbone was one of the most distinctive and eclectic alternative rock bands of the late '80s...
  
  
• Los Lobos
  Los Lobos
  Los Lobos are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños.-History:The...
  
  
• Trinity Roots
  TrinityRoots
  TrinityRoots are a successful band based in Wellington, New Zealand. Although they are commonly associated with New Zealand reggae they also embody a stripped back, jazz and soul influenced rhythmic sound, which often builds up to highly emotional drum- and guitar-led crescendos.Like their...
  
  
• Kate Miller-Heidke
  Kate Miller-Heidke
  Kate Miller-Heidke is a singer-songwriter from Brisbane, Australia. Although classically trained, she has followed a career in alternative pop music. She is signed to Sony Australia, Epic in the US and RCA in the UK.-Career:...
  
  
• Michelle Shocked
  Michelle Shocked
  Michelle Shocked is the stage name of Michelle Karen Johnston, an American singer-songwriter.-History:Shocked received her first international exposure in Europe, particularly Britain, with her debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes .Her first U.S...
  
  
• Jeff Lang
  Jeff Lang
  Jeff Lang is an Australian songwriter, singer and slide guitarist. A leading performer in the Australian roots music scene and purveyer of his self-described "disturbed folk" style, which incorporates primarily folk, blues and rock...
  
  
• Saltwater Band
  Saltwater Band
  Saltwater Band are an Indigenous Roots band from Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island, around 560 kilometres from Darwin. The members are Yolngu and they sing mostly in language. Their songs are a mixture of traditional songs and reggae/ska influenced pop...
  
  
• Washington
  Megan Washington
  -Studio albums:-Extended plays:-Singles:-External links:* *...
  
  
• Jack Thompson and the Original Sinner
  Jack Thompson (actor)
  Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and one of the major figures of Australian cinema. He was educated at University of Queensland, before embarking on his acting career. In 2002, he was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers Society...
  
  
• Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band
• Neil Murray
  Neil Murray (Australian musician)
  Neil Murray is an Australian musician and writer. He was a founding member of the Warumpi Band that formed in the early 1980s, the first major Aboriginal rock group and influential Aboriginal rock band.-Biography:...
  
  
• Ash Grunwald
  Ash Grunwald
  Ash Grunwald is an Australian radio announcer and blues musician.-Early career:...
  
  
• Eli "Paperboy" Reed
  Eli "Paperboy" Reed
  Eli "Paperboy" Reed is an American singer. After graduating from Brookline [Massachusetts] High School in 2002 he went on to release two independently-released albums, namely Sings Walkin' & Talkin' & Other Smash Hits! and Roll With You. Come & Get It is Reed's third album and his major-label...
  
  
• C. W. Stoneking
  C. W. Stoneking
  Christopher William Stoneking is an Australian blues singer-songwriter and guitar and banjo player. He currently resides in Bristol, England and performs across Australia and internationally as a solo artist and with his backing band, the Primitive Horn Orchestra.To date Stoneking has released two...
  
  
• Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band
  Tim Robbins
  Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
  
  
• Eric Bibb
  Eric Bibb
  Eric Bibb is an American acoustic blues singer-songwriter. He is based in London and launched his career in Europe. Today he lives in Finland.-Biography:...
  
  
• Ruthie Foster
  Ruthie Foster
  Ruthie Foster is an American singer-songwriter of blues and folk music.Foster is from Gause, Texas and comes from a family of gospel singers. She studied music at McLennan Community College and then worked in the US Navy, where she started performing. Her debut was released in 1997 and she has...
  
  
• Tony Joe White
  Tony Joe White
  Tony Joe White is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his 1969 hit "Polk Salad Annie"; "Rainy Night in Georgia", which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970; and "Steamy Windows", a hit for Tina Turner in 1989...
  
  
• Joe Louis Walker
  Joe Louis Walker
  Joe Louis Walker, also known as JLW is an American musician, best known as a electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. A feature of his work is his recourse to older material or playing styles, which revealed his knowledge of blues history.-Career:Joe Louis Walker was born in San...
  
  
• Frank Yamma
  Frank Yamma
  Frank Yamma is an Australian musician.Frank is a singer and song writer from Central Australia and is a Pitjantjatjara man who speaks 5 languages and sings in both Pitjantjatjara and English...
  
  
• The Bamboos
  The Bamboos (funk band)
  The Bamboos are a Soul band from Australia.-Biography:The Bamboos were formed in 2000 in Melbourne Australia by NZ-born guitarist Lance Ferguson. The initial line-up consisted of Ferguson, Ben Grayson on Hammond Organ, Stuart Speed on Bass and Scott Lambie on Drums...
  
  
• The Aggrolites
  The Aggrolites
  The Aggrolites are a reggae and ska band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2002.- Overview :The Aggrolites are an amalgamation of two previous Los Angeles reggae and ska bands, the Vessels and the Rhythm Doctors. They formed in 2002 as a live backing band for reggae icon Derrick Morgan, and...
  
  
• Resin Dogs
  Resin Dogs
  Resin Dogs are a Brisbane, Australia-based hip hop band, originally formed in 1996. Resin Dogs are a loose collective, a cut and paste sample band who use live drums, live bass, and elements of hip hop via turntables and samplers to create all forms of ritual dance sounds...
  
  
• Yodelice
  Yodelice
  Yodelice is a French song-writer who performs in English. He has released two albums so far: Tree of Life and Cardioid . The songs belong to folk, rock and pop music. He is also known for his acting performance in Guillaume Canet’s film Les Petits Mouchoirs with Marion Cotillard in 2010...
  
  
• Shane Nicholson
  Shane Nicholson (singer)
  Shane Nicholson is an Australian singer-songwriter from Brisbane in Queensland. He currently lives on the Central Coast in New South Wales with wife Kasey Chambers, with whom he has a son, Arlo Ray, born in July 2007....
  
  
• Lisa Miller
  Lisa Miller
  Lisa Miller is an Australian singer/songwriter known for her clear, bitter-sweet voice and poignant semi-biographical songs.-Biography:Miller grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Chadstone, the daughter of social realist painter Peter Miller...
  
  
• The Dingoes
  The Dingoes
  The Dingoes are an Australian country rock band initially active from 1973 to 1979, formed in Melbourne they relocated to the United States from 1976. Most stable line-up was John Bois on bass guitar, John Lee on drums, Broderick Smith on vocals and harmonica, Chris Stockley on guitar and Kerryn...
  
  
• Leah Flanagan
  Leah Flanagan
  Leah Flanagan is a singer-songwriter from Darwin, Northern Territory.She has Italian and Irish heritage. She received a nomination for Best New Artist at the 2008 Deadly Awards. Flanagan and her band released their debut album in 2008...
  
  
• Bobby Long
  Bobby Long (musician)
  Bobby Long is a British singer-songwriter whose largely acoustic body of work has its roots in folk. Born Robert Thomas Long in Wigan, near Manchester, he moved at age 4 to Calne in Wiltshire, where he grew up, though he still holds deep roots in Wigan.- History :He learned cello as a child,...
  
  
• Lowrider
  Lowrider (Australian band)
  Lowrider is an Australian hip hop soul band, formed in 2004 when brothers John and Paul Bartlett joined with bassist Scott Duncan and singer Joseph Braithwaite...
  
  
• Dale Watson and His Lone Stars
  Dale Watson (singer)
  Dale Watson is an American alternative country/Texas Country singer, guitarist and songwriter based in Austin, Texas. He's positioned himself as a tattooed, stubbornly independent outsider who is interested in recording authentic country music...
  
  
• Barrence Whitfield
  Barrence Whitfield
  Barrence Whitfield is an American soul and R&B vocalist and best known as the singer of Barrence Whitfield and the Savages in the 1980s.-Life and career:...
  
  
• The Blackwater Fever
  The Blackwater Fever
  The Blackwater Fever are a dynamic blues guitar/drums duo, from Brisbane, Australia. The group have recently gained popularity after national radio exposure from Australian radio station Triple J, through the stations Home & Hosed segment, and their Unearthed program which gives new upcoming...
  
  

External links

• East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival
• News from local residents on the new festival site