New Deal Café Gets Down And Dirty With The Blues

People couldn't help but get up and dance as they enjoyed a day's worth of blues at the Roosevelt Center – the music just makes you want to move.

"People like the blues because you can get up and dance to it," said Jenny Langer, who does booking and public relations for the group Moonshine Society. "They want to get up and they want to boogie, and they want to do it to a live band."

Though this was the first time Moonshine Society played the festival, Sept. 11 marked the seventh year the Greenbelt Blues Festival has been held. And organizers felt this year was the best they've seen.

"This has been one of our most successful [festivals] in terms of attendance and quality of music," said Dorian Winterfeld of the nonprofit Friends Of New Deal Café Arts, the organization that sponsors the festival.

FONDCA estimated about 600 people attended the event, which lasted from noon to 7 p.m. outside and until 11 p.m. inside New Deal Café. And Rick Allison, stage manager of the festival, said the event doubled in size from last year with a consistent audience of 250 to 300 people.

"It brings something positive to the community. We want to bring festivals and activities to Roosevelt and we also want to bring business to New Deal Café … and other businesses in the Center," Winterfeld said.

And Washington, D.C., resident and music lover Jaynie Simmons-Taylor and her husband do just that, traveling across the region in search of good music.

"If you tell me that the weather's decent and the music is free, we are more than willing to come out and buy a dinner at the local placed … and put money back into the community we're visiting.," she said.

Simmons-Taylor, who pulled mesh folding chairs from her car and sat outside on the sidewalk when the music moved inside and left no seats, said she arrived at the festival at about 3 p.m. and planned on staying the rest of the night.

"We'll be where when they shut the doors and boot us off the sidewalk," she said about how much she was enjoying the music. "I could be in Silver Spring right now listening to Aaron Neville, but I'd rather be here."

Neville headlined the Silver Spring Jazz Festival the same night.

Waverly Milor, who ran the festival in its first five years, said the bands that come out play at well under market value.

"But in the DC music scene they're willing to come out and play [for a small stipend and tips] because they know the crowd loves to hear the blues," he said. "And it also brings this type of music to people who don't necessarily know it. And the place is packed tonight."

It's the love of music that brings people out every year, Allison said.

"The musicians do this for the love of the music and the love of the stage," he said.