Bonnie Raitt to Headline Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival

World-famous blues singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt will provide the opening and closing acts to this year's Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival at Sandy Point State Park, according to an announcement.

This year's festival is set to kickoff on May 18. The festival is a two-day event to raise money for four local charities.

“We are very excited to have Bonnie Raitt. She has been at the top of our wish list since the first year in 1998,” said Chesapeake Bay Events organizer Don Hooker. 

Raitt has nine Grammies and two Grammy award-winning albums: "Nick of Time" and "Luck of the Draw," featuring hits, "Something To Talk About" and "I Can't Make You Love Me." She returned to touring after a brief hiatus in 2012, and the Broadneck-based festival will be among her list of gigs this year.

Chesapeake Bay Events (CBE) held its first festival in 1998. It has quickly gained national notoriety as one of the premier Blues Festivals in the world.  Outside of providing top caliber entertainment, the festival also gives all net proceeds to charity.

This year’s charity recipients are: End Hunger Calvert County, Camp Face, a joint endeavor of the John Hopkins Cleft and Cranial Facial Children’s Center and Mercy Hospital, We Care and Friends, which is an organization providing a wide variety of services to the needy of Annapolis, and Camp Fantastic, a camp for children with cancer which is operated by Special Love, Inc.

Tickets for the event will go on sale Feb. 15, through www.bayblues.org. A complete festival lineup will be announced shortly, according to the announcement.