Don’t you just love Elmore James? “The Sky Is Crying” is a personal fave ...  “The sky is crying, look at the tears roll down the street The sky is crying, look at the tears roll down the street I'm waiting in tears looking for my baby, and I wonder where can she be?” ... And that slide guitar ... what a gifted bluesman he was. I love tunin’ in to my blues station on Pandora and playing Elmore James as I clean the house. Or garden. Or daydream ...

But enough about me and Elmore James ...

This weekend is the 26th annual North Atlantic Blues Festival! Blues fans will be making their annual pilgrimage to Rockland for two days of blues heaven. That’s thousands of people. Tens of thousands. Headliners are Sugaray Rayford on Saturday and Ruthie Foster on Sunday. Both shows are 4:45-6:15 p.m. By the way, Sugaray just won the Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year award at the 4oth annual Blues Music Awards in May.

There’ll be dancin’ in the streets of Rockland, Friday, July 12 and Saturday, July 13 ... dancin’ that will move through the twilight and evening hours with the Club Crawl. The Club Crawl – an oh-so-popular event – features local and regional bands at some of the local restaurants, clubs, street corners ... some of those bands include Blind Albert Blues Band, Matt and The Barnburners, Downeast Soul Coalition, and our local blues band, the Don Brewer Blues Project, will be kickin’ it at Ada’s Kitchen again this year. 9:30 p.m. Just sayin’ ...

The festival is produced by Paul Benjamin and Jamie Isaacson and it’s one heck of a rockin’ great time. An excerpt from the Mississippi Blues Trail sign in Rockland: “The presence of the blues in Maine was solidified in 1994 with the formation of the North Atlantic Blues Festival, a premier annual event that has featured many Mississippi artists.” Check out www.msbluestrail.org ... the trail is long, my fellow blues friends.

Tickets are at the Harbor Park gate only now – and that’s cash only, blues fans. For all the deets, get to www.northatlanticbluesfestival.com

Remember: As Willie Dixon told us: “The blues is the roots, everything else is the fruits.” Get in touch with your blues roots this weekend ...