TERRE HAUTE —
Even longtime Blues at the Crossroads festival-goers will notice some new scenery this year.
The 12th annual celebration of blues in the streets of downtown Terre Haute will feature some interesting and fan-friendly twists as all-evening music unfolds, starting at 6 p.m. Friday, and 3:15 p.m. Saturday.
The admission price returns to $10 per person, per day. That entry fee, paid at the gate, gives a fan access to that evening’s full roster of acts — five on Friday, and seven on Saturday. Last year, with a Saturday admission of $20, attendance dipped, but organizers were able to cover all of the festival’s expenses, said Connie Wrin, blues fest founder and organizer. To keep this year’s price down to the previous level of $10 on both days, the gate will open a few hours later than usual on Saturday, lowering the cost for staffing, police and insurance, she added.
Wrin said she “would be happy” with a two-day crowd total of 8,000, and the weather forecast — a key attendance factor — appears to be good. The turnout hit 10,000 in 2010, filling the intersection of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue.
Veteran blues fest fans will quickly spot two new elements. A JumboTron screen, near the beer garden on the west boundary along Wabash, will broadcast live images from the stage. Also, a centralized food court will occupy the parking lot of the Vigo County School Corp. administration building.
Meanwhile, the sounds emanating from that stage will offer listeners a unique treat — an added dose of blues delivered with a woman’s touch. Several of the acts feature women as solo artists, lead singers, backing vocalists and musicians. Two acts on Friday (Jennie DeVoe and Sara Ehrhardt), and another two on Saturday (Jill Shutt and Erin Zindle of the Ragbirds), are fronted by women, while others (such as Breezy Peyton, washboard player for Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band) will support guy singers. Likewise, Terre Haute’s Yearbook Committee is comprised of Christina Blust, Jon DaCosta, Travis Dillon, David Goodier, Brad Lone and Rachel Rasley.
DeVoe, a popular Indianapolis-based singer-songwriter-recording-artist known around the country, has opened for Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, Lucinda Williams, Jack Johnson, Ray Charles and other notables, and played the last Lillith Fair. Her repertoire ranges beyond blues as she puts her unique stamp on folk, pop and rock material.
“We just happen to be bluesy, and I hope we fit in with the festival,” she said in a telephone interview.
“It’s going to be cool, and we love doing established festivals,” DeVoe added.
Later Friday, Ehrhardt, a Minneapolis recording artist for Blind Pig Records, will take the stage with her band, featuring her guitarist father, Ed Ehrhardt. On Saturday, Shutt opens the music and Zindle and the Ragbirds are scheduled as the closers. In between, they’ll hear Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, a trio including Josh Peyton on retro slide guitars, his “cuz” Aaron Persinger on drums (and 5-gallon bucket), and Josh’s wife, Breezy, on wicked washboard. Josh Peyton calls their sound, which includes a popular new album “Between the Ditches,” as “rural blues.”
“People that are true blues fans know the real history, and they always get what we do,” Peyton said. “They understand it.”
And other folks?
“Usually, they like it,” he added, “but they’re confused.”
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.
bennett@tribstar.com.
Blues at the
Crossroads
• Where: Intersection of Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue, downtown Terre Haute.
• When: Friday, beginning at 6 p.m., Terre Haute Children’s Choir directed by Daniel Tryon, Yearbook Committee, Jennie DeVoe, Mike Milligan and Steam Shovel, Sena Ehrhardt; Saturday, beginning at 3:15 p.m., Jill Shutt, Max Allen, Fernando Jones, W.T. Feaster, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, The Leonard Washingtons, Ragbirds.
• Price: All-day admission is $10 per person, per day at the gate (children under 16 get in free).
• Suggestion: With limited picnic-table seating available, patrons are recommended to bring their own lawn chairs.
Top Story
Blues at the Crossroads offers 2 nights of non-stop entertainment
- Top Story
-
-
$590M-plus Powerball: 1 winning ticket sold in Florida
DES MOINES, Iowa — It's all about the odds, and one lone ticket in Florida has beaten them all by matching each of the numbers drawn for the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million, lottery officials said Sunday.
-
Powerball jackpot closing in on another record
DES MOINES, Iowa — Less than 10 months after three tickets split a world-record lottery prize, the jackpot for Saturday's Powerball drawing was nearing historic territory once again.
-
N.Y. Giants honor Weatherford as ‘Man of the Year’
Dan Tanoos, superintendent of Vigo County schools, remembers the first time he saw Steve Weatherford as a freshman at Terre Haute North Vigo High School.
-
UPDATE: Fire damages buildings in downtown Greencastle
GREENCASTLE, Ind. — Fire badly damaged several buildings today near the courthouse square in Greencastle, with flames shooting through the roofs as firefighters from several communities were called in to the central Indiana city to help.
-
10 tornadoes whip through North Texas; 6 dead
Ten tornadoes touched down in several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless. Emergency responders were still searching for missing people Thursday afternoon.
-
MARK BENNETT: Local summer music series idea remains a good one
One-of-a-kind ideas happen rarely.
As the biblical adage goes, there is nothing new under the sun. We humans succeed occasionally, inventing electricity, automobiles, telephones and the Internet. Invariably, though, someone else insists, “Hey, my grandpa thought of that years before Edison.” -
Jolie: 'I do not feel any less of a woman'
Angelina Jolie says that she has had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it extremely likely she would get breast cancer.
-
10 Things to Know for Tuesday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
-
Abortion doctor guilty in 3 babies' deaths
An abortion doctor was convicted Monday of first-degree murder and could face execution in the deaths of three babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors at his grimy, "house of horrors" clinic.
-
IHS announces lineup for Concerts on the Canal, reprise of 'Museum Nights on the Canal'
INDIANAPOLIS —There are plenty of ways to enjoy downtown Indianapolis in the summer, and the Indiana Historical Society is offering two — both time-honored favorite Concerts on the Canal and its Museum Nights on the Canal program.
-
Small tornado causes minor damage in southern Vigo County
Riley firefighters had just heard on the emergency scanner Thursday night that a tornado was nearby when they looked west of their firehouse on Indiana 159 and saw one traveling northwest across a field.
-
Update: Cleveland man arraigned on rape, kidnap charges
A Cleveland man was arraigned Thursday on charges of rape and kidnapping after three women missing for about a decade and one of their young daughters were found alive at his home earlier in the week.
-
Arias says in interview that she wants death
The jury has rendered its verdict — Jodi Arias is guilty of first-degree murder — but the trial is far from finished.
-
UPDATE: Mistrial declared in second Boswell murder trial
A second mistrial was declared this morning for a Riley man accused of the 1979 slaying of 20-year-old Kathy Jo Baker. Richard L. Boswell Jr., 55, was released today from the Vigo County Jail, where he had been held since his October 2010 arrest on charges of murder and attempted murder.
-
Deming Elementary second-grader receives new heart
The long wait for Katelyn Newell has finally ended. Wednesday evening, she successfully underwent heart transplant surgery at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health.
-
Levee fails, Wabash River floodwaters inundate Prairieton farmland
A Vigo County official says a levee has failed near the flooded Wabash River, allowing floodwaters to inundate farmland near the town of Prairieton and isolating about two dozen homes.
-
Boston bombings probe turns to wider terrorist ties
Authorities said they will examine every scrap of evidence, including text messages and cell phone calls, to determine if an organized terrorist group encouraged two brothers from Russia to plant bombs at the Boston Marathon, then engage police in two bloody shootouts before one was killed and the other captured Friday.
-
UPDATE: Boston police: Bombing suspect is in custody
A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead.
-
1 of 2 Boston bomb suspects dead; manhunt continues
WATERTOWN, Mass. — With the city virtually paralyzed, thousands of officers with rifles and armored vehicles continue to swarm the streets in and around Boston today, hunting for a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombing after his older brother and alleged accomplice was killed in a furious getaway attempt overnight.
-
VIDEO: Massive explosion at fertilizer plant rocks Texas town
An explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, on Wednesday night has flattened buildings and injured dozens, according to local officials.
-
Conflicting reports of arrest in Boston bombings
BOSTON — Police and reporters converged on the federal courthouse in a jittery Boston today amid reports of a breakthrough in the investigation of the marathon bombings and conflicting information on whether a suspect was in custody.
-
Investigators find clues to Boston bombing
The forensic investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing is developing a preliminary picture of how it was done, though not yet who may have done it.
-
Massive hunt under way for marathon bombers
BOSTON — A massive police investigation is under way today for clues to who planted two powerful bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators, including an 8-year-old boy, and injuring more than 140 people.
-
Boston Marathon bombings kill 3, injure more than 140
Two bombs exploded in the crowded streets near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three people and injuring more than 140 in a bloody scene of shattered glass and severed limbs that raised alarms that terrorists might have struck again in the U.S.
-
2 killed, 23 injured by bombs at Boston Marathon
BOSTON — Two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon this afternoon killing two spectators and injuring 23 others, including runners and spectators, Boston police said.
-
Post office retreats on eliminating Saturday mail
WASHINGTON — The beleaguered U.S. Postal Service backed down from its cost-saving plan to eliminate Saturday mail delivery, acknowledging that Congress barred a move that supporters said was essential to addressing the agency’s dire financial condition.
-
UPDATE: Vigo woman killed in accident near Walmart South
A Vigo County woman was killed around noon today in an accident on U.S. 41 South at the Walmart entrance, according to police.
-
NIT bid for ISU; homecoming for Lansing
Want to take a ride on the circle of life? Take this one for a spin.
-
Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Argentine Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Pope Francis.
-
West-bound I-70 closed in Putnam County due to fatal accident
West-bound Interstate 70 is closed in Putnam County due to a fatal accident near Cloverdale, according to the Indiana State Police.
- More Top Story Headlines
-




