Kenny Neal to headline with Colossal Winners at Electric City Blues Fest


Blues great Kenny Neal comes to the Capital Region when he headlines the New York Life Electric City Blues Festival beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 12 in Central Park, Schenectady at the Music Haven Stage. Presented by the Northeast Blues Society, the area’s largest FREE summer blues event also features a playoff by the three finalists in The Society’s Colossal Contenders Contest: Blues Sanctuary, J.V. and the Cutters, and Joe Lowry and Second Mile. 

Also on the bill is Tas Cru and the Slow Happy Boys.  You, the Capital Region blues fans, picked Tas Cru and the Slow Happy Boys as last year’s winners in the Colossal Contenders Contest at the First Annual Electric City Blues Festival. That win helped catapult Tas Cru into the most talked about new blues act on the scene.

The Electric City Blues Fest is the chance for Capital Region blues fans to vote for their favorite blues band in the Colossal Contenders Contest, the largest, longest running and most respected blues competition in the area. In the first round of the competition on Saturday, May 17th at Revolution Hall in Troy, the field was narrowed down to three bands that will perform on July 12th. The winner of that competition by popular vote will receive more than $2500 in prize money and will be the Northeast Blues Society’s entry in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge, the world’s largest gathering of blues bands in Memphis next February. Second and third place winners receive cash awards of $400 and $300 respectively.

The Northeast Blues Society is a not-for-profit organization that has a 15-year record of presenting the best in local, regional and national blues music. We’re mentoring artists who further the music like Albert Cummings and Tas Cru (last year's winner) who is a current “Pick to click” on XM Satellite Radio's Bluesville channel 74 and is now on a 24-stop “Tornado Alley Tour” of the south. His Gravi-Tas album with the Slow Happy Boys is being called by Blues Revue: “a multi-course feast of the down-home variety: friendly, welcoming, and direct.”