To locals, the Chicago Blues Festival is an annual chance to congregate and celebrate, primarily in Millennium Park, though it’s also just as much an international tourist destination where folks from all walks of life come together to immerse themselves in a style frequently associated with the Windy City.
The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events may have topped itself when it came to 2025’s entirely free programming, including sets by homegrown heroes Mavis Staples and John Primer, plus a B.B. King Centennial Tribute and Chess Records’ 75th anniversary showcase.
Grammy Award-winner Staples closed the festivities, presenting solo classics and those she personally popularized alongside family band The Staple Singers, many of which were the soundtrack to the entire Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and beyond.
In fact, those messages were just as timely today as they’ve ever been, such as “I’m Just Another Soldier,” “Handwriting On The Wall,” “Freedom Highway” and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal favorite “Why? (Am I Treated So Bad), while the headliner constantly blurred the lines between blues, soul and gospel…