BLUES BASH AT THE RANCH – PART TWO – SATURDAY

Blues Bash at the Ranch runs Friday, March 15, 2024 through March 17, 2024 with three days of incredible blues.  Camping is optional.  Single day and weekend passes are on sale online through 3/11/24; after that tickets are available only at the fest.

Always family and pet friendly.  On Saturday, a full day of activities for children 12 and under; ie, painting, tie dye, piñata, hay ride and more!  Parents meet at the ranch playground to sign your children in.  Also, lots of great vendors on site.

Make sure to take part in our fabulous raffle.  Tickets will be sold Friday and Saturday; drawing is Saturday evening.  Main prize is an autographed electric guitar by all the bands (bands on Sunday will also sign the guitar).  Other great prizes include 2 weekend passes to the 2025 Blues Bash at the Ranch Festival, 2 weekend passes to the 2024 Rock & Roll Revival and 2 weekend passes to the 2024 Camping with the Blues Festival (passes do not include camping) and so much more!

Saturday morning kicks off at 11am with our guitar workshop with Champ Jaxon!  Open to all attendees, this will be fantastic.  Meet at the main pavilion with your guitar.  We’ve got a full day of music ahead.

Music starts at 12:15pm with the Street Preacher Band!  Street Preacher is an Americana roots rock band hailing from Jacksonville Florida; An impacting dynamic sound of resonating soul that pours out in each live performance to every audience. High energy original music from the influential depths of hard-hitting pure rock to storyteller old soul to the criminal sounds of southern rock & the blues.

The Champ Jaxon Band takes the stage at 1:45pm; Champ Jaxon is an old soul with a new perspective.

At 13 years-old, this aspiring blues-rock musician is based out of Southwest Florida. Champ has performed over 120 gigs with The Champ Jaxon Band in nine different states. He first performed on Music Row in Nashville in 2021 when he was just ten years old and Beale Street in Memphis a year later, representing the Southwest Florida Blues Society at the International Blues Challenge. He appeared on “The Ellen Show” with guest host Brad Paisley in December of 2021 and made his acting debut on NBC’s “Ordinary Joe” a month later. Champ also performed at the 2022 Young Artist Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, where he took home the “Outstanding Instrumentalist” honors.   There are too many accolades for this young man to list.  Check out this website for more info!  The blues have a great future!

At 3:15pm, Jared Petteys & the Headliners takes the stage!  With a sound as classic as the crackling of a Sun Records vinyl still spinning somewhere in Memphis, yet as fresh as the musical stylings of the 21st century, Jared Petteys & The Headliners are busy making waves with their genre-bending brand of tunes. Reminiscent of the vibrant heyday of rock n roll music, the band finds their origins in the styles of classic country, rockabilly, and blues all the while ushering in a new era of rock-and-roll that is as distinctive as the men who form it. Born in the marshes of coastal South Carolina, Jared Petteys (lead vocals/guitar), Stephen Palmer (upright bass), and Russell Lee (drums/backing vocals), blended their unique individualities and influences together to create a band with a rare sincerity that is not often seen in today’s industry. They have spent the past five years cutting their teeth in the South Eastern music scene while simultaneously running the roads discovering who they are and where they belong in the world as they plant roots in towns big and small across the country by burning down every stage they step on. Their high-energy, emotive stage presence is as lively as their melodies.

The Shaelyn Band is up next at 4:40pm – this band is taking the industry by storm!  The whole band has a cool vibe with a unique sound, and are very engaging with the audience. You can’t help but groove with them when they play.  Hope everyone has on their dancing shoes!

We take a dinner break at 5:45pm – lots of great food from our vendors or campers bring their own.

Power trio, Soul Miners Unions plays next at 6:30pm; they are a red hot blues rock power trio that sets the stage on fire with their killer tones, scorching riffs, and huge dynamic range.  Their diverse catalog and energetic live performances feature an explosive intersection of frontman Ben Brandt’s virtuosic guitar work and soulful voice, Liam Galiano’s powerful bass playing and songwriting, and Aidan Reeve’s full-throttle drumming style.  Soul Miners Union is quickly taking the blues rock world by storm.

At 8pm, RB Stone joins us on stage.  RB is a man who has lived the life that Americana, country, and blues songs are made of, so no wonder he writes and performs them so well. With years under his belt as a railroad worker, cowboy, plumber, Hollywood actor, truck driver and jet pilot, RB has a genuine knack for grit and guts with an undeniable talent that keeps audiences electrified.  Just as RB is a jack of all trades, he’s also a jack of all genres. A natural storyteller, RB is just as skilled at delighting engaged house-concert audiences with his country and folk-leaning songs as he is revving up festival goers with his band-backed blues and rock and roll. Whether playing an acoustic or electric guitar, RB is at home on stages of all shapes and sizes and knows how to deliver memorable performances for the most intimate or expansive of audiences.

We close out the evening at 9:30pm with the ever popular Biscuit Miller & the Mix with Rachelle Coba.

Biscuit is an electric blues bassist, singer and songwriter. He writes most of his own material, and has released three albums to date. In 2012 and 2017, Miller won a Blues Music Award in the ‘Instrumentalist – Bass’ category. His best known songs include “Lay It On Down”, “Bottle of Whiskey Bottle of Wine”, “Going Home”, “One More Mile”, “Monday Morning Blues”, and “Wishbone”.  Biscuit is well known for his 1000 watt smile that lights up the stage. Performing with the band is, Rachelle Coba, a high powered guitarist and vocalist.

After the last band plays, musicians who did not have to leave for other shows, will get up to jam.  Our evening jams are epic!

For more information on camping and tickets, please call Roseanne at 941-758-7585 or go online:

www.bluesbashattheranch.com      We can’t wait to see you at the bash!

Greg & Roseanne

Sarasota Cigar Box Fest Weekend

March 8-9, 2024

Cigar box guitar fans and blues fans have much to look forward to as Big Top Brewery in Sarasota will be the focal point for a full day of music celebrating home-made instruments.

Hand-crafted string instruments found their start in the blues. Artists like Bo Diddley popularized instruments made from cigar boxes, borrowing a custom created by the sharecroppers who started blues music. The history of blues  is linked to homemade instruments. And this weekend is a musical celebration of this legacy.

Our area is fortunate that Steve Arvey calls it home. Raised on Chicago blues Steve has become one of the world’s premier cigar box guitar (CBG) players. Steve will open the weekend as he performs with  Shane Speal at Hot Sands Tiki Bar in Sarasota on March 8th. Shane is a builder, player, author, and historian of cigar box guitars and built his first instrument in 1993. Shane is credited for helping popularize this musical genre.

Saturday March 9th is the main event. In addition to Steve and Shane performing at Big Top, the fest will welcome John Nickel to Sarasota. A life-long musician beginning at the tender age of two, life events derailed his musical focus until 2009 when he built his first CBG. As John stated, “ I honestly feel like CBGs gave me a second chance at music” And that is the charm of this genre – it’s provided many without financial means, or without time – the ability to pick up an instrument easily and make music.

The Garbage-Men band is what home-made instruments are all about. Billing themselves as “promote recycling reuse & community service by playing music on instruments we make from garbage” you never know what pieces of someone else’s “trash” are turned into their musical, and our, “treasure.”

Resonator guitars, or Dobro’s, found fame in the early days of blues. And at this fest we are delighted to have Devin Williams in attendance. Devin is an emerging star and performs solo Delta Blues. Devin stays true to history while performing songs created by the originators of the genre and writes his own music that will take you back to the early days of blues.

Plenty of vendors will be on site, and our own Gary Drouin of Memphis Rub Band will have his home-built Hurricane Amplifiers at the fest. There will be a raffle for a homemade cigar box guitar.