The Eastside Kings Blues Festival started in 2013, as an idea of bassist, producer, and veteran Eddie Stout. Stout created the Eastside Kings Foundation in 1999 along with recording and releasing an album also named Eastside Kings on Dialtone Records. The album featured several of Austin’s largely unknown veteran and emerging African American blues artists that Stout considered extremely talented including Clarence Pierce, Willie Sampson, and Donald ‘Duck’ Jennings.