The Red, White and Blues Festival on July 5, 2002 in Marietta, Ohio was a fabulous blues festival.  The weather was perfect (clear, warm and low humidity), the food was good (and inexpensive!) and the admission price was low (all of five bucks!).  As usual, I blew a bundle on CDs, T-shirts and such, but what the heck's money good for but spending?

Anyways, I pulled on my press pass, took out the camera and caught four great bands blasting out good blues music into the night!

The David Martin Band led off the festival with some fabulous guitar work, keyboards, drums and harp, getting the crowd in the groove for the long (7 hour!) festival.

Colin John, who recently released his CD titled "Evolution" on WMF Records, was a last minute fill-in act who mixed blues with funk and R&B which provided an interesting slant on the blues.

As the night came on, the Melanie Mason Band from the Washington DC area kicked off an hour long set with some electric blues straight out of the Memphis genre.  From left to right, Melanie Mason, guitar and vocals; Torro Gamble drums; Sam Goodall, bass guitar and vocals.

Don't you feel like you're dancing in the front row while Melanie blasts the blues into the evening?  (Ed. note:  Thank you, Melanie, for the nice note complimenting this page!)

The view from the wings of the stage is timeless----blues musicians playing their hearts out!

The Nerak Roth Patterson Band out of Wilmington, Ohio closed out the show with a variety of songs from their "Back in the Day" CD.

Back in the front row again...

...as the band gets everyone up and dancing...