Bentonia Blues Festival 2025

June 19-21, 2025

Come celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the Bentonia Blues Festival in 2025! Stay up-to-date with the latest announcements. “Like” the Bentonia Blues Festival page on Facebook!

The event will feature food and merchandise vendors, RV, and tent camping (fees may apply), live music, and more. The Bentonia Blues Festival is a unique down-home style festival that runs on juke joint time just like the historic and authentic oldest juke joint in daily operation, the Blue Front Cafe… In other words, times and order of performances are bound to change a bit. Relax and have a great time with us as we help to keep the Bentonia blues alive!

About the Bentonia Blues Festival
The Bentonia Blues Festival began in 1972 on a farm just up the road from the world-famous Blue Front Cafe on land owned by the Holmes family. It was a tiny event, with only one D.J. and Walter “Big Daddy” Hood (“500 lbs. of Blues”) performing a capella. The location of the festival was moved to downtown Bentonia, Mississippi in 2006. Since that time, the festival has grown from an attendance of a couple hundred to ten thousand in recent years, prompting the festival to be moved back to the original location on the Holmes farm from time to time. The festival has attracted blues performers and fans from far and wide.
“When I started this festival in 1972, it was to help preserve the Bentonia style of blues, which is unique to this area. I knew then that it would be a great event, but I never knew it would be as big as it is now,” says Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, owner of the Blue Front Cafe and creator of the Bentonia Blues Festival. “The fact that so many people have become aware of this music and want to celebrate it every year with us here in Bentonia really warms my heart. Every year we have people here from a different country or state that’s never been before. The Bentonia blues is still alive, and it’s right here.”

Event Location

Blue Front Cafe, 107 E Railroad Avenue, Bentonia, MS 39040