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Blues Passions heat up Cognac

#255 From 2010-07-30 to 2010-08-06

Amadou and Mariam from Mali are on stage on Friday night
Reproduction interdite.

It’s that time of year again when Cognac comes alive to the sounds of jazz and blues. The town’s Blues Passions festival kicked off on Wednesday and runs until Sunday 1 August. As with every year the line-up of performers reflects some of the best talent in the world from blues, jazz and related genres of music. On Wednesday festival goers enjoyed the performance of Seal, on Thursday it was the turn of Barbara Hendricks and The Victory Lovers and on Friday the star turns include The Revelations, featuring Tre’ Williams, and the duo from Mali, Amadou and Mariam. Some would question whether their music is really blues or not, but no one would argue against the quality of their music. They have picked up music awards around the world, including from the BBC, and their songs contain the bittersweet experience of life for which the blues is known. For Amadou, the blues is about being about to express the issues of everyday life. ‘To speak of the problems you encounter, of suffering and happiness,’ he says. ‘The first blues singers in the United States expressed their lives as slaves, their work in the cotton fields. They came from Africa. We do the same thing, even if the conditions are different.’ But is their music really the blues? ‘Every time you talk about the blues you remember above all that it comes from Africa,’ says Amadou. ‘What one is expressing with the blues is exactly the same as we are expressing with our music, bambara. We use the same notes, the words are the same. And in all blues festival there is music from Mali.’ This year the organisers hope that the popular festival will attract up to 22,000 paying visitors by the time the event ends on Sunday. However director Michel Rolland is already thinking about the future and about attracting headline acts that could play to 20,000 people in one concert. ‘That is for the years to come, maybe even next year,’ he says. ‘I’d really like to get Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Ben Harper, Bob Dylan, JJ Cale...’ adds Michel Rolland. ‘Today we have the recognition, the ability and the contacts to do it.’
For more information about this year’s festival visit: www.bluespassions.com