Throwback Thursdays - Blues from Ann Arbor, '72 (and '69)

The Festival at Ann Arbor originally started in 1969 at the University of Michigan, and was held just two weeks before another legendary outdoor concert got its start in upstate New York -- a little gathering of some 500,000 people you might’ve heard about called Woodstock. And while Woodstock has since gone into the history books as one of the greatest rock festivals of all time, in strictly blues terms, the 1969 Ann Arbor festival saw a gathering of talent that has been virtually unmatched to this very day. Making a small profit and hailed as an artistic success, another festival was scheduled for 1970, but it lost money, due to a competing festival nearby. After going dark in 1971, the festival was revived -- with an expanded line up that included jazz icons like Miles Davis -- and was fortunately recorded by Atlantic Records, with a double LP set being issued the following year. And while a handful of cuts off of that LP were reissued on CD over the years, some of them (such as Otis Rush's blazing performance on "Gambler's Blues") remain maddeningly hard to find. As for legendary, it's pretty hard to top Magic Sam, live at Ann Arbor, 1969. Most blues fans would probably agree that his set at Ann Arbor is one of the top live blues performances of all time. As for a young blues fan named Amy O'Neal who was in the crowd to witness it all happen (she's known as Amy van Singel these days), Magic Sam live at Ann Arbor was one of the best she's ever heard, before or since. While the music at the 1972 festival was professionally recorded, in 1969, due to a technical snafu, recordings were made with a handheld cassette tape recorder out in the field. Years later, the tapes of Magic Sam were placed in the hands of Delmark Records, who subsequently released them on the critically acclaimed Magic Sam Live . Needless to say, it's considered essential blues listening. So catch the spirit of the times with these heady performances from Ann Arbor, 1972, and Magic Sam's blistering performance from Ann Arbor, 1969 -- that is, just in case you weren't there to catch it the first time around. Pictured: Southpaw guitarist Otis Rush, who was the closing act for the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival.