George Anderson:
I’m from Long Island originally, and in 1993, I started making trips up to this area, which was the first time I’ve been to this part of the state. I’ve been to other parts, I’ve been further north, I’ve been west and I’ve been east, but I’ve never been to what’s called Central New York, where Chenango County is. On my trips up here, I saw how beautiful it was. So I decided to start looking for property, and I did find a piece of property in a land book in Oneonta. And in the land book, it said, “Cabin barn in acreage in Pittsfield, New York.” So I brought the book to the real estate agent who was sitting there and he goes, “Oh, you don’t want to go to Pittsfield! There’s nothing there.” And I said, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’m coming from Long Island. I’m looking for a place where there’s some peace and quiet, and I have some room, some acreage.”
So I ended up buying this piece of land. It was 83 acres with a cabin and barn on it in 1993. So that got my foot into… That’s actually Otsego County, but that’s just over the bridge from Chenango County. And once I got there and settled, I spent my summers there because I was a school teacher. So I was able to spend my summers up here. Eventually I started meeting people, and one of the people I met told me he was another musician as I am, said, “If you go to Norwich,” which was about 20 miles west of where I was with the cabin, “That they started this Bluesfest.” And I’m like, “Really? A Bluesfest up here? This would be great.” So I had gone there and I met the people and became quickly involved. At that time, this was now about 1994, I was traveling.
I also have motorcycles and I was making trips from Pittsfield to Canada and other places and go into Bluesfests, like the Ottawa Bluesfest, these big festivals. And when I told those folks that, they were intrigued. So they asked me, “Could you take these posters with you and put them out wherever you go?”
“Absolutely.” And once I did that, they pulled me in. And I’ve been involved pretty much since. And this is 2025. So the Chenango Bluesfest started in, I believe, 1992. The person who started it and runs it today, his name is Eric Larsen. He had a barbecue party in his backyard and hired a band, and apparently it went over really well. And as they probably were drinking and listening to music, they decided, “We should maybe do this, make this into a bigger event.” So in 1993, they actually, I guess asked the people that have the park commission in Norwich, New York if they could put on a show of some sort? And they said, “Yeah,” and that’s really the basis of the start of the Bluesfest.
So I went maybe the second year, ’94, ’95. I went there to check it out, and there wasn’t a lot of people. They had a couple of national acts. Money was really tight, but they saw that there was a start of something. And of course, there was lots of other Bluesfests to look at for historical background, like Chicago and New Orleans, really big ones. San Diego. So that was the beginning of the Bluesfest. And then my involvement started around 1995, not just delivering the posters to these other festivals around the country, but they found out I was a musician and being I was a musician and none of the people, they formed a board, which they still have. And they said, “Well, you’re a musician. How about if you can help us with the musicians? You talk the same language. You understand their needs and things, and the little fires that come up that you can put out because you understand the equipment.” The amplifiers, microphones, all that equipment in the background is called the backline. And they said, “Well, you understand backline because you do this.” I record. I have a recording studio.
“Sure, I’ll get involved.” And that was the greatest part of it, and it still is that I get to actually work with all these national acts that come in and meet these women and men that come in and play, and you do speak the same language. So it’s a very comfortable thing. Eventually I got on the committee for some years, and then left it because I was living in other states for a while. And then when I came back, they grabbed me again and asked if I could help with the main stage. So now myself and another fellow, we run the main stage at the Bluesfests. There’s two stages.
So the Bluesfests went from the late ’90s really, to having, I don’t know, maybe a couple of 100 people to now we sell out, which is around 3,000, which is really incredible. We were even voted one of the best Bluesfests in America, I think it was around 2018. And that just blows my mind because our budgets are small compared to Chicago and these other ones, they have millions of dollars in budget. We don’t have that. We have our regular sponsors, NBT Bank stepped in. So it’s really become this fabulous show. People come from all over. They come from even the West Coast and they camp because we have camping available for them. So it goes basically three days. It starts on a Thursday night unofficially, because we have the Thursday night free shows all through the summer. But the Thursday night before the show, we always have a great band, which we do this year again. And that’s in the park in Norwich, Eastside Park, which has the permanent gazebo. And then it moves over to the Fairgrounds Friday night, which is a free show for everyone.
And we have three national bands usually for that. That’s the official kickoff. And then Saturday is actually the Bluesfest. It’s become an amazing event. It’s great for Chenango County, certainly great for Norwich. It’s very hard to get a room around here. It’s become very popular. There’s people coming far. Usually the people that come once, that’s it. They come every time because it’s just a fabulous event. Well, you go to other Bluesfests, like I have friends that go down to New Orleans every year. They call it the Jazz Fest, which is kind of the same thing, but down there, you’re going to spend just for tickets, hundreds of dollars. Our ticket price as of now, is $40 for the show on Saturday. It’s two stages. Music all day, all national bands. But you also have Thursday night free, Friday night free. So for 40 bucks, you got three days of music and there’s vendors and the vibe there is great. Yeah, it’s just an amazing event. And this is our 32nd this year. It would’ve been 33rd. We lost the one year for COVID. So we’re back.
