Can the Blues Get Its Mojo Working Again?

Mike Wheeler says he has 16 gigs lined up in April at clubs in his hometown of Chicago — a solid run but nowhere near the number he was playing before the pandemic. “Things are 50% normal,” says the veteran singer-guitarist, who has performed with Buddy Guy, the late B.B. King and Koko Taylor. “[There are] more clubs open now, but mostly Wednesday through Sunday. We’re trying to find the most gigs I can get in the city, but as far as tours and revenue, it’s kind of limited.”

Even in a blues mecca like Chicago, the genre has taken a significant hit over the past few years. Artists and club owners in musically vibrant cities cite numerous culprits — rising crime rates, the lingering pandemic-era habit of staying home, competition from nearby music festivals, home alcoholic-beverage delivery and the recent deaths of such headliners as Lonnie Brooks, Jimmy Johnson, James “Tail Dragger” Jones and members of The Kinsey Report.

“It is sporadic, to say the least,” says Lisa Pellegrino, who manages Chi-town’s famed Kingston Mines blues club. “I don’t think anybody’s having a banner year.”

While Tony Mangiullo, founder and owner of nearby Rosa’s Lounge, is more upbeat — “The business is good, that’s all you need to know,” he says — he acknowledges the pandemic changed fans’ concert-going habits. “By 1:30, 2 in the morning, people are tired, the musicians are tired, and we’re tired. In the past, you would have people staying late. I’m really hoping we go back to that.”

Through its rickety constellation of indie labels, roadhouses and juke joints, the blues business is reinventing itself. Its biggest stars have died, retired or reduced their touring activity, leaving fewer headliners to carry festivals and weekend club dates. And while artists like Wheeler and clubs like Rosa’s keep the lights on with hard-drinking customers, door fees and ticket sales, the pandemic and its aftermath have forced many to rethink their models.

Mangiullo has invested in livestreaming and hopes to release live album compilations this fall; venerable Chicago-blues indie label Alligator Records partnered in 2021 with a new music company, Exceleration Music — founded by former Concord Music Group CEO Glen Barros — to handle physical distribution and other functions; and a new generation of stars, from singer Shemekia Copeland to guitar hero Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, has expanded the playing field from traditional clubs to gigs at arts centers and festivals, social media and satellite radio.

U.S. streaming numbers for the genre have increased 41% since 2020, from 1.7 billion in 2020 to almost 2.5 billion last year, according to Luminate. (In comparison, Taylor Swift racked up 17.5 billion on her own.) But owners of indie blues labels say the revenue has little impact on their bottom lines. “It takes a lot of streams to make a nickel,” M.C. Records owner Mark Carpentieri says. “Our better-known classic artists, like Hound Dog Taylor, Koko Taylor and Albert Collins, have a lot of life in the streaming services,” says Bruce Iglauer, founder of 53-year-old Alligator Records. “Our lesser-known artists do not particularly benefit from them.”

The genre remains reliant on touring, and if blues stars use social media to market to their older-skewing fan bases, they’re more likely to use Facebook instead of TikTok. They also sell albums and CDs at gigs for autograph-seekers, and labels are scrambling to make as many titles as possible available on vinyl.

Ingram, whom Iglauer calls Alligator’s “big success story,” is a 25-year-old guitar hero who has grown into an international festival headliner, even though his most popular album, 2021’s 662, has just 9.3 million streams in the United States and has sold 29,000 copies. Many in the blues business point to him as the future, a young talent who can refresh the genre. At first, Ingram’s friends were into hip-hop and didn’t much care for blues; today, he tells Billboard, “I see a resurgence in young people liking it, especially young Black kids.”

Ingram’s manager, Ric Whitney, says blues artists are expanding their audiences by supplementing club gigs with shows at festivals, arts centers and other venues that feature a wider range of music genres and styles. “There are a lot more places that are open to booking blues talent that aren’t necessarily blues clubs,” he says.

Veteran blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, who estimates his post-pandemic ticket sales are “back and then some,” says he has broadened his marketing efforts to rock fans who attend Foo Fighters, Eagles and Red Hot Chili Peppers shows. “We’ve always looked at it from the point of view [that], ‘If Eric Clapton can pull 15,000 people in a market, there’s clearly 15,000 people who like this kind of music,’” Bonamassa says. “It’s a classic rock-/blues-based audience, and that’s where you want to target.”

Bonamassa suggests artists and clubs identify fan base demographics through Google Analytics and other data tools, then “laser-focus marketing to the people that love this shit.” An effective blues cross-marketer has been Copeland, who uses her show on SiriusXM’s Bluesville channel to promote her albums and steady weekend touring. “This year is going to be one of the best financially that she ever had,” says her manager, John Hahn.

Others are struggling or modifying their business strategies. Terra Blues, the 34-year-old club in New York’s Greenwich Village that books acoustic locals such as guitarists SaRon Crenshaw and Jr. Mack, relies on the lenience of a landlord. “If not for that, we probably would be closed,” owner Ilan Elmatad says. “Bluesmen do not tour anymore. It’s too expensive. These days, they’re staying where they are, whether it’s Mississippi or Arkansas. There are no blues clubs from Philadelphia to Montreal. We’re the only one.”

The departure of reliable artists from the touring circuit, whether they’ve retired or died, led Austin talent buyer Zach Ernst to rethink his approach to booking acts at Antone’s Nightclub and the Austin Blues Festival. For years, the club’s late founder, Clifford Antone, was strict about sticking to traditional artists, but Ernst says he’s “lucky if I can do one or two blues shows a month.” And whereas blues festivals throughout the United States once relied on straight-down-the-middle artists from Luther Allison to Koko Taylor, the Austin Blues Festival has expanded its lineup beyond the genre, much like the New Orleans Jazz Festival in recent years. This year’s festival stars Buddy Guy (whom Ernst calls “the last Chicago blues headliner, period”), Brittany Howard and blues-adjacent acts from Big Freedia to Dumpstaphunk.

“Everywhere, promoters are dealing with: ‘How do you deal with an aging fan base? How do you deal with a reduced number of headliners that are appealing to the baby boomer generation?’” Ernst says. “We don’t get too prescriptive by explaining exactly what we’re doing. We’re just like, ‘Hey, this is great music. Have a great time.’”

This story appears in the April 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.

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