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Historic Cocoa Village’s BBQ & Blues Set For This Weekend

By  //  June 8, 2012

ENTERTAINMENT

The merchants of the Historic Cocoa Village Association will host their second annual BBQ & Blues festival at Riverfront Park in Downtown Cocoa Village on Friday and Saturday.

Last year’s event has been a great success, so organizers used the same recipe to serve up some fingerlicking food with smoking blues. Brevard’s very own blues man Josh Miller will be hosting and playing the stage featuring some of his finest blues musician friends, among them headliner Dough Deming.

Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones have been in demand as a backing band for a “who’s who” of today’s top blues performers, including Chicago’s A.C. Reed, Louisiana Red, Chicago Pete, Cannonball vocalist Alberta Adams, Black Top’s Johnnie Dyer, W.C. Handy Award winner Johnny “Yard Dog” Jones and the legendary Lazy Lester.

The event will feature a backyard and professional BBQ competition, kid zone, craft vendors, food vendors, the Blues Brothers Movie in the Park on Friday night and great blues music all day long on Saturday.

The music starts at noon with top blues performers including:  Josh Miller’s Blues Revue with Ben Champion, Kenny Clarke and Kostas Galanopoulos, Mike & Lynn Corby, Little Mookie & the Half Pints, and then Doug Deming will take the stage at 6pm.

This event is sanctioned by the Florida BBQ Association and will bring professional BBQ competitors from all over the southeast and thousands of people from all over the state to Brevard County.

Major Cash Prizes

Along with the professional BBQ competition, there will be a backyard BBQ competition for people who want to get their first experience in competitive cooking.

There are major cash prizes for the professionals and smaller prizes for the backyarders.

In addition to the main on-going events on Friday and Saturday, organizers offer a Blues music pub crawl throughout the Village restaurants and bars on Friday night starting at 6:30pm.

The Historic Cocoa Village Merchant Association has partnered with Cindy Johnson at the Brevard County School District for this event to assist the county with school’s music programs. Partial proceeds from this event will go toward Music in Schools through Brevard Schools Foundation.

Johnson

The goal for this event is to bring locals and out-of-towners into beautiful Historic Cocoa Village, to expose local people to the excitement of competitive BBQ cooking, to showcase our wonderful American Blues music tradition, and to put on an event that the whole family and community can enjoy.

“We have no gimmicks,” says leader Doug Deming about his band The Jewel Tones.

“We play pure traditional music from the heart, with an image that conveys a deep respect for the genre.”

In Demand Band

As a result, Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones have been in demand as a backing band for a “who’s who” of today’s top blues performers, including Chicago’s A.C. Reed, Louisiana Red, Chicago Pete, Cannonball vocalist Alberta Adams, Black Top’s Johnnie Dyer, W.C. Handy Award winner Johnny “Yard Dog” Jones and the legendary Lazy Lester.

Doug Deming hails from Detroit but has relocated to Florida. As a guitarist and vocalist, he acknowledges a musical debt to T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian and other Texas bluesmen as well as moderns like Jimmie Vaughan and Ronnie Earl.

At Historic Cocoa Village’s BBQ & Blues Doug is not backing a legendary name, but his friend Josh Miller will feature his exquisite guitar and vocals.

If you like traditional blues, then don’t miss Josh Miller and his group of talented musicians.

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