The 14th annual Soul Shine Blues Festival is proud to welcome Graná Louise and Henry Gray to this year’s stage. Also performing will be 2007 International Blues Challenge winner, Sean Carney. The festival takes place 2-8:30 p.m. Sept. 26, rain or shine in the Meadowbrook Park Ballroom, Bascom, Ohio.

Soul Shine will also feature the music of the Soul Shine Blues Band as the opening act. Admission for this year’s festival is $20 and tickets are available before the festival or at the gate. Soul Shine will also feature its signature Southern cooking, raffle items, and our theme basket silent auction.

Henry Gray has been playing piano for over seven decades, recorded with Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Little Milton, Jr. Wells, Lazy Lester, and has more than 58 albums to his credit. He held down the piano stool in Howlin’ Wolf’s band from 1956 till 1968, and been credited as helping to create that distinctive Chicago blues piano sound. Returning to Louisiana in ‘68, he became part of the swamp boogie scene. In recent years he’s received four W. C.Handy nominations, and been awarded the National Heritage Fellowship Award by the National Endowment of the Arts. He’s been a fixture at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals for the past 30 years.

Sass with Class!  Straight from the heart of Chicago, Graná Louise encompasses the Blues. She is simply hands-down, the quintessential female voice of Chicago Blues. Graná Louise’s show brims with all the elements that make a performer great! Her deep-throaty-broad- rich voice, belts out the kind of raw gut Blues that makes your spine tingle and heart and body ache. Her impeccable timing and staging is keen, spiced with ribald fun and pizzazz that gives audiences a show to remember! Her background in professional theater and dance, lends itself wonderfully to her act.

Graná Louise is a regular act at Chicago’s hottest Blues Club’s, including Blue Chicago, Buddy Guy’s Legends, Andy’s Jazz Club, Shaw’s Crab House, Redfish, KoKo Taylor’s Celebrity, B.L.U.E.S on Halsted Street, and Kingston Mines.

Winner in 2007 of the International Blues Challenge, Albert King Award, and “Best Band in Columbus” according to Columbus Monthly, Sean Carney continues to create, produce, and advocate for great blues music. As stated in Blues Revue Magazine, “A one-man ambassador for the blues, Sean Carney has brought his music to such far flung locales as France, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. He has served three terms as President of the Columbus Ohio Blues Alliance, and he promotes concerts as musical director of the Island Arts Foundation in Ft. Myers Beach, Florida. He plays a mean hollow-bodied guitar, too.”