About the Porter Parish Grainger Blues Festival of Bowling Green
The Porter Parish Grainger Blues Festival of Bowling Green is a celebration of Blues music, Black folklore, and the cultural history rooted in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The festival honors Porter Parish Grainger, a Bowling Green-born pianist, composer, playwright, and musical director whose work became part of the sound and performance culture of the vaudeville and Classic Blues era.
Grainger’s story begins in a community shaped by Black life, labor, business, music, and tradition. His connection to Bowling Green’s historic Shake Rag community and the **Southern Queen Hotel—where Grainger spent part of his early life—**provides an important local pathway into a much larger story of Black American music. These spaces remind us that the Blues did not simply appear in the places most commonly associated with the genre. The music emerged from a broader ecology of Black communities, movement, memory, work, performance, and cultural exchange.
The festival brings Grainger’s story home through Blues performances, narrative stages, artist conversations, cultural demonstrations, and hands-on workshops. By celebrating Porter Parish Grainger in Bowling Green, we recognize the Blues as more than a genre of music—it is a cultural archive carrying the experiences, knowledge, creativity, and stories of the Blues People.
The Porter Parish Grainger Blues Festival invites Bowling Green to remember its history, celebrate its Blues legacy, and carry the tradition forward.
Honoring the Legacy, Preserving the Blues
On Saturday, August 8, 2026, the Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation will present an all-day online telethon supporting the Porter Parish Grainger Blues Festival of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
This special broadcast will celebrate the life, music, and legacy of Porter Parish Grainger, the Bowling Green-born pianist, composer, arranger, and influential figure in early Blues and Black American popular music. The telethon will feature performances, interviews, historical reflections, archival materials, and community voices, while raising funds to support festival artists, educational programming, documentation, and cultural preservation.
The date carries special meaning. For generations, Black communities in Kentucky and Tennessee have observed August 8 as a day of Emancipation, remembrance, reunion, music, and cultural pride. By holding the telethon on this historic date, we connect Porter Parish Grainger’s legacy to a broader tradition of Black freedom, memory, and community celebration.
Join us online from anywhere as we honor the past, support the present, and preserve the future of the Blues.
Saturday, August 8, 2026
All Day | Online | Remote