1/29/06 - First weekend Blues wails across the city

Forty eight hours after the beginning of the annual Ferndale Metro Blues Festival began, the organizers, club owners, the musicians, and the patrons are very very happy. Full houses, great music and great camaraderie were evident at each of the first two dozen events that have taken place. We have a breather tonight, there are just two concerts at Club Bart and Dino's.

Friday saw eleven separate concerts and all were popular and well-attended. Barbara Payton played to a packed house at Club Q, which held a women's concert as part of the Blues Festival. Three hundred women (and a half dozen guys) were treated to great rock in a beautiful nightclub.

Rosie O'Grady's was rocking all night long, and owners and patrons were on Channel 7 news three times during the evening newscast.

The Comos pig was full after Saturday, and will be swapped out for another one so patrons can continue to donate to the local charities. The Coffee Beanery raised $60 for festival charities. Festival volunteers at that concert included the new Ferndale Fire Department Chief Schmidt and his wife, his brother, and sister in law.

Saturday night the Reefermen packed Dino's, and patrons began to line up outside Dean Bach's front door, hoping to get in.

Via Nove, the four-star Italian restaurant that once housed the Ferndale Masonic Temple and later the Temple nightclub, featured Sunny Girl & the Detroit Automatix. This was a first for the restaurant, the place was jammed, and Chief Chef and Owner Joe Beato was beaming. The great food there was eclipsed only by the music.

And Little "Junior" Cannaday played amazing and classic blues at Club Bart. I got to meet that Blues legend out on Woodward Ave, where we got some air, he sold some CD's and we watched the free Darta shuttles ferrying merry makers from venue to venue across downtown Ferndale.