The second annual Festival Del Mar, held on September 23 and 24, was a blast! Day One was packed with blues, soul, funk, and fun.

I started off the day with a good dose of Married By Elvis, our local ranch house rockers. A little country, a little blues, and a lot of energy proved infectious as evidenced by the dancing and swaying crowd. Julia Garlington charmed everyone with her winning smile and smoky vocals, and I have to say, in the more-than-a-year I've been following the band, they've never sounded better. There's a certain underlying sweetness to the prowling and occasionally growling delivery of the music, and it doesn't hurt that this group's just a helluva lot of fun. If you haven't already figured out that I like Married By Elvis, let me state it unequivocally, I like Married By Elvis! What's more, I appreciate the amount of work they've put into their act and am very excited to see how well it's paying off for them when they take the stage.

I cleansed my musical palate with a bit of slack-key guitar from John Keawe and his accompanying hula dancer — his wife Hope. Not sure what slack-key guitar is? It's a special style of fingerpicking and tuning first learned by Hawaiians from Mexican cowboys in the 19th century. Once the cowboys left, the style evolved into modern day slack-key. It's a distinctive sound and, on a warm day down near the beach, it's fairly irresistible.

I followed this up by shooting over to see the Bill Magee Blues Band. Joining Bill on stage were Jasper, the amazing harp/conga/tambourine man, Mike "Sandalwood" Jones on bass, Guy Cariglio on drums (who also sat in with another act later in the day), and Mike Mitchell on guitar. I'd never seen Mitchell perform with the band before and was pleasantly surprised with how much richer and fuller the sound was with the addition — not that I had any complaints about the band before!

For those few of you who haven't had a Bill Magee experience, don't hesitate to get out there and see this band! This group delivers some of the finest blues you'll ever hear and it was enough to get music fans of all ages dancing and air guitaring. Now, there's some big history to be had when it comes to Bill Magee, most notably his time spent with Jimmy James and the Flames.

That's right, before he was known as Jimi Hendrix, the man used to trade guitar riffs and licks with Bill, or Willie as he was known back then. It's hard to determine who had more influence on the other, and it surely matters little at this point. The simple fact is, Magee continues to thrill audiences with his talent. And this brings me to another point that must be made here, without Blues Lovers United of San Diego, I might never had the pleasure of discovering just how much talent — like Bill — we have in town. Far from a cultural wasteland, San Diego needn't rely on the occasional festival for blues lovers to get their fix.