Ana Popovic Leads The New Blues Festival IX Lineup

07-31-2025

(DDPS) The New Blues Festival IX makes its triumphant return to Shoreline Aquatic Park, 200 Aquarium Way, Saturday, August 23 and Sunday, August 24. Gates: 2:00PM (Saturday); 9:00AM (Sunday).

The 2025 lineup features A-List performers including international superstar guitarist, Ana Popovic; blues-rock guitar ace Dennis Jones Band; SoCal favorites, Laurie Morvan Band and The Delgado Brothers; and more acts to be announced shortly. Food, art, and crafts vendors will be in attendance, as per the norm at all the past New Blues Festivals.

The New Blues Festival NBF is the largest blues event in Los Angeles County California, the most populous county in California. This will be our ninth festival overall, with two having taken place in other cities, including Huntington Beach. We create, produce and promote these music festivals featuring traditional and contemporary blues music on two stages. A Main Stage featuring international and national touring acts and a Second Stage featuring regional and local acts. Food, beverage, and craft vendors as well as business and public information booths will be available.

"There is a long tradition of music and blues music performance in the greater Long Beach area. In fact, we are creating a museum to celebrate this great history and contribution to popular music worldwide," says Bill Grisolia, New Blues Festival promoter/creator, and himself a longtime musician. "It's important to understand a little about the history of the Blues festival in this town. The initial one began in 1980 and ran more or less for twenty-seven years, becoming the second-longest-running blues festival in California history. One of the founders of that festival broke off and, for ten years, did a separate annual Blues festival. So, for ten years, there were two annual blues festivals in Long Beach. The original one became a fixture at California State University, Long Beach, which owns the radio station KJazz, which has one of the largest Blues broadcast audiences in Southern California for the past fifty years.

"After this great tradition," continues Grisolia, "there came for a variety of reasons a pause. There were no longer blues festivals in Long Beach, which was a great cultural loss. I began the New Blues Festival as an offshoot of my then-band, the New Blues Revolution -- believing in the pent-up, inter-generational demand for such a show in LB. For the first New Blues Festival, recalls Grisolia, I thought maybe I'd get five-hundred to one-thousand people. We ended up with approximately eighteen hundred paid tickets, thus proving the thesis. The New Blues Festival has gone on to entertain thousands upon thousands of people, presenting appearances by young and old artists before they win Grammy's and other notable awards. For example, it is extremely rewarding to find a talent like Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram and bring him here as a teenager, and then he goes onto win a Grammy award. The same is true at the other end of the spectrum, having booked nonagenarian Bobby Rush here in the later stages of his career, while he's gone on to win three Grammy awards. These are a few examples of the many fabulous talented performances that we've been blessed with to bring to the greater Long Beach area.

"International star Ana Popovic will return to New Blues Festival to headline this year," says Grisolia. "It should be pointed out that her last festival appearance here in 2017 generated a real cultural phenomena. A Facebook live video of Ana's last performance has been seen by almost one and a half million people. Ana's career has continued to advance; we are beyond excited to bring her back to Long Beach.

"New Blues Festival this year has also booked a variety of other notable talent, including the Dennis Jones Band, whom garnered the Rising Star Award here a few years back. Jones has since gone on to be nominated at the Blues Music Awards, continuing to get growing national recognition and tour internationally. Other international stars returning to the NBF include celebrated guitarist, Laurie Morvan. The Delgado Brothers are longtime staples on the Southern California blues scene."

The New Blues Festival is a joint venture with the Long Beach Blues Society, the latter which is a 501(c)(3), charity, charitable corporation based in California. For over a decade, the Blues Society has provided music services to undeserved communities in the greater Long Beach area through programs like Blues In the Schools, Blues for Seniors, Blues for Veterans Community Concerts, and collaborating on the New Blues Festival. The Long Beach Blues Society will have a presence at the New Blues Festival. Come and see what they do; you will be amazed!