Blues Blast Magazine
Blues Blast Magazine is a weekly online magazine dedicated to the Blues genre. The magazine provides artist interviews, album reviews, and news. It is the presenter of the annual Blues Blast Music Awards. In 2025, Blues Blast Magazine was honored by The Blues Foundation with a Keeping the Blues Alive Award for its contributions to the genre.
History
In 2007, publisher and editor Bob Kieser launched Illinois Blues Blast. The publication began with an email list of approximately 1,000 subscribers. The initial focus was on album reviews and performance schedules for artists in Illinois and the surrounding Midwest. In 2008, the publication was rebranded as Blues Blast Magazine. The shift coincided with the establishment of the annual Blues Blast Music Awards. In 2013, the publication was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame.The magazine is a digital publication distributed weekly. Its editorial content focuses on the contemporary Blues scene and its history. The magazine operates with a staff of over 20 writers and photographers, and has published over 900 consecutive weekly issues, which includes over 5,500 music reviews and 670 artist interviews. The publications is the largest publicly available online repository of Blues information.
Blues Blast Music Awards
The Blues Blast Music Awards are an annual set of awards presented by the magazine since 2008. Although the Awards are noted for being the largest fan-voted awards in the Blues genre, its nominees are determined solely by a group of Blues music industry professionals, including music critics, journalists, festival promoters, music venue managers, producers, and musicians.According to the magazine, the Awards results in two forms of recognition for artists. First, since award nominees represent the "best of" choices from Blues critics, an artist is recognized as having earned the equivalent of a "critics' award" honor by being nominated. Second, because the award winners are determined by the votes of Blues fans, an artist is recognized as having won the equivalent of a "people's choice award" honor in the category they were nominated.
The Awards are hosted at a live ceremony featuring performances from the nominated artists. For its first several years, the ceremony was held at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago. In 2023, the 16th annual awards were held for the first time in Peoria, Illinois, at the 3300 Event Center, and served as a fundraising benefit for the Sean Costello Memorial Fund for Bipolar Research. The Awards has also presented the Sean Costello Rising Star Award, which was named in honor of blues musician Sean Costello.
The Awards recognize artists across a wide spectrum of blues sub-genres. In 2024, Rick Estrin & The Nightcats won Contemporary Blues Album for The Hits Keep Coming, in a category that also included nominees Selwyn Birchwood and Anthony Geraci. The award for Traditional Blues Album went to John Primer & Bob Corritore for Crawlin' Kingsnake, with other nominees including Nick Moss and Monster Mike Welch. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram was named Male Blues Artist, and Sue Foley was named Female Blues Artist. Other nominees have include Shemekia Copeland, Bobby Rush, Bai Kamara and Elvin Bishop.
The Awards recognize achievement in the following categories:
Album:
- Contemporary Blues Album
- Traditional Blues Album
- Soul Blues Album
- Rock Blues Album
- Acoustic Blues Album
- Live Blues Album
- Historical or Vintage Recording
- New Artist Debut Album
- Blues Band of the Year
- Male Blues Artist
- Female Blues Artist
- Sean Costello Rising Star Award
- Producer of the Year
- Electric Guitar Player of the Year
- Acoustic Guitar Player of the Year
- Slide Guitar Player of the Year
- Bass Guitar Player of the Year
- Keyboard Player of the Year
- Drummer of the Year
- Harmonica Player of the Year
- Horn Player of the Year
- Vocalist of the Year
- Blues Music Video of the Year