Jazzfest 2010: July 15–17, 2010

“A powerhouse guitarist with a sense of rock dynamics – her playing has a fire that is free of self-indulgence.”
-The Chicago Sun-Times

Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues – JazzFest 2010 Thursday performer Shannon Curfman announced her departure from several tour dates, including JazzFest, as she goes on the road with Kid Rock’s band this summer.

Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues welcomes Chicago-based blues diva Joanna Connor as Curfman’s replacement. Connor will play at 6:30pm Thursday, July 15th as part of the added third day to the festival this year.

About Joanna Connor.

Once she stepped off a greyhound bus in Chicago in October of 1984, it took Joanna but a few months to take the city’s highly competitive blues circuit by storm. Chicago Magazine hailed her as “the most exciting new talent on the blues scene.”

Enamored of her mother’s Taj Mahal and Jimi Hendrix albums as a child, Joanna received her first guitar at age seven and sang with various Worcester groups while still in high school. She turned professional in 1981, forming the Pino/Connor Band with guitarist Ken Pino, which performed at various clubs and colleges throughout New England. She was named “Best R&B Vocalist of the Year” by Worcester Magazine .

Jim Gaines, Grammy Award-winning producer of such artists as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Santana, and Steve Miller, was so impressed by Joanna’s talents that he signed on to produce her second release, Fight, also on the Blind Pig label. Playboy Magazine said, “The obvious comparison is Bonnie Raitt, since she’s female and plays blues guitar. I say Connor’s a soprano Johnny Winter. Most blues records miss the passion that made the original stuff compelling. This one reclaims it all.”

“We couldn’t have asked for a better “substitute” for a hardcore blues guitarist than Joanna Connor,” said Executive Director Robert Joyce. “Joanna is a gritty, hardened guitarist and singer that has made a name for herself in one of the most historic cities of the Blues in all of America. Chicago will have to do without Joanna one night as she burns up our stage in Sioux Falls at JazzFest Thursday night.”

2010 Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues – JazzFest dates are July 15, 16, and 17 at Yankton Trail Park.