Imagine the scene. It is early evening in a small town in the south west of France. It could be any dark, cold, wet November night. There is the odd man propping up a local bar. Otherwise, there is no one around. Shutters are firmly closed, the place is extremely quiet ... and you ask yourself how France gets its reputation for the good life.
A Veritable Transformation
Visit the same town over five days and five nights in the last week of July and the French
joie de vivre is only too evident. Every shade of the blues – be it gospel, soul, rhythm’n blues, Chicago blues, Delta blues – reverberates in the town from early morning until sunset. It is almost impossible
not to come across some musician or other. This very transformation takes place every year to an ever growing public. It is the
Cognac Blues Passions festival. The French know how to do festivals and this one is a ball.
We are not talking here about a village fête – in recent years, the festival has attracted about 40,000 festival-goers. Previous
Cognac Blues Passions have witnessed prestigious artists like
BB King, Ray Charles, Taj Mahal, Bill Wyman and The Rhythm Kings ... some of whom have never actually played in France before. But the objective of the festival is for the public to discover young – and French – talent too.
Everyone Is Welcome
Apart from the quality of the music, another reason for the popularity of the festival is that it is accessible to everyone. In past years, there have been 66 programmed concerts of which 53 were
free. Put another way,
Cognac Blues Passions means five days of more or less non-stop music, for nothing!
The principle of dividing the concert throughout the town is that it enables the public to find exactly the type of blues they are looking for – from funk to gospel – at whatever time of the day they prefer. It might be
petit déjeuner (café and
croissants available) in the public gardens with the Bernic’Jazz Band, a pre-lunch
apéritif with the Brasshoppers or an afternoon
goûter with Aynsley Lister.
Spreading the fun around allows everyone to get a look in, from children to the elderly as well as summer tourists stopping off in town for a couple of hours on the way to the coast. The atmosphere is
sympa: you do not need to be ‘knowledgeable’ about the blues to participate.
Every evening, the blues resound in 11 bars in the town – including the one at the campsite – with free live music from nine o’clock in the evening, often until two o’clock in the early morning during the four evenings of the festival. The choice is between nursing a drink all night in the same bar or experiencing an unforgettable pub-crawl!
The Setting
The epicentre of the
Cognac Blues Passions festival is the beautiful public garden,
l’Hotel de Ville. It was here that, during a terrible hurricane in December 1999,237 of its 600 trees were destroyed. The garden has since been re-designed and trees have been replanted. It is an idyllic venue – a friendly, welcoming one in which you can come and go, sit on the grass or under a tree while you listen. The weather helps of course because, although no one can promise wall-to-wall sunshine, given that the festival takes place in late July, there is a good chance of it.
Some of the other settings for the ticket paying concerts are magical too. The afternoon ‘River Blues’ is an acoustic cruise along the local Mississippi –
la Charente.‘The Groove
au Château’ takes place in the guards’ room of the Renaissance château where Francis 1st King of France was born.
A Friendly Atmosphere
A certain intimacy between the musicians and their public has characterised the previous
Cognac Blues Passions festivals. My neighbour still raves about Ike Turner (yes, Tina’s ex) whom he swears only looked about 50 even though he was 71 at the time. A special showing of Ray – the film – was shown at the local cinema when Ray Charles died, so deeply was his loss felt by the locals who had been touched that such a great celebrity had graced their festival a few years previously. Whereas no doubt at more commercial concerts, you cannot get near the musicians, here the whole family get close up along with holiday makers and the serious fans.
The musicians evidently feel the friendly atmosphere too. A local taxi driver recounted at length how two of the singers of The Blind Boys of Alabama (the legendary gospel group made up of seven musicians) got down off the stage with their microphones. Apparently, to the delight of the audience who went delirious – the taxi-driver included.
The Cost
As for the running costs, although in 2002, there were 120 voluntary helpers who were divided into nine groups, they worked side by side with professional organisers. A good dozen sound engineers with the same number of lighting technicians produce an installation capable of spitting out about 90,000 watts! How can a local festival which cost about 520,000 euros one year put on such an event? The answer is that some of the cost is covered by grants, some by sponsorship and some tickets.
It Is Good For The Economy Of The Town
There is the belief that the
Cognac Blues Passions festival reaps benefits for the town. Hotels, restaurants and bars naturally see more visitors than at more sleepy times of the year, but local people, too, are encouraged to let out their spare rooms.
The intention is also that visitors become acquainted with both
cognac – the drink – the world famous ‘king of brandies’, an elegant spirit distilled from wine and Cognac, the town itself – a place whose people and surrounding countryside produce this noble
eau-de-vie.
Cognac is produced exclusively in two small
départments in the southwest of France, Charente and Charente-Maritime, in a strictly limited area. Every stage in the making of
cognac is exclusively local (and subject to extremely stringent rules and regulations). The grapes are grown there; the wine is distilled in traditional pot stills manufactured in the region. The barrels for ageing
cognac are hand-crafted in local cooperages from wood grown in nearby forests. Even the bottles are produced at a factory in the town.
It is worth keeping an eye open for festivals in even small French towns – and not just during the summer months – because the locals generally throw their heart and soul into them. As far as the
Cognac Blues Passions is concerned, the alchemy that transforms the local grapes into ‘the nectar of the gods’ is very like the transformation of the town during those five days and nights when it becomes the host for what is arguably one of the top blues festivals in Europe.