The August Blues Festival (originally called Augustibluus) is a blues music festival in Haapsalu, Estonia. The festival takes place inside the walls of Haapsalu Castle and since its inception in 1993 has become the biggest blues festival in Estonia.
Besides hosting Estonian blues musicians, there have been guests from Finland, Sweden and the United States of America, including Jimmie "Bluesman" Lawson from Oklahoma.
In 1998, the festival introduced the first American car convention in Estonia.
Famous quotes containing the words august, blues and/or festival:
“Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone—glimmering through the dream of things that were.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The blues women had a commanding presence and a refreshing robustness. They were nurturers, taking the yeast of experience, kneading it into dough, molding it and letting it grow in their minds to bring the listener bread for sustenance, shaped by their sensibilities.”
—Rosetta Reitz, U.S. author. As quoted in The Political Palate, ch. 10, by Betsey Beaven et al. (1980)
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)