Nashville’s Centennial Park will come alive with the sound of the blues on Memorial Day (5/25), with the arrival of the Blues Spring Festival. The free show will feature blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland in the headlining slot. Bland — a member of the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient — is indisputably one of the finest blues interpreters to ever to grace the genre. He’ll be joined by a stellar cast of blues artists including Nashville’s “Queen of Blues” Marion James, local bluesman Stacy Mitchart, James Nixon, Miranda Louise, Johnny Jones, Queen Ann Hines and Michael Holloway.

According to festival producer Carol Jenkins, “This festival will have all the makings of a great blues festival: great blues all day long, home-cooked food, and a touch of jazz. The entire Nashville community is invited to this free event.”

The blues festival is sponsored by The New Hope Foundation, an organization that provides humane and supportive services to terminally ill and HIV/AIDs persons in the Nashville area.

What do Clear Channel and Terra Firma have in common? They both purchased assets that have declined greatly in value and as a result are struggling to satisfy debt loads that are difficult to support given the current business climate.

Terra Firma, which purchased EMI two years ago for $4.7 billion is under stress to help the music company meet some of its covenant debt obligations. If EMI is unable to meet those obligations, then Citigroup, which controls the $5 billion debt load could move EMI into bankruptcy.

On the other hand, Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman has just successfully managed to restructure his company’s debt through a very smoothly and successfully orchestrated bond offering which raised $1.1 billion thereby putting WMG in a more flexible position with regard to acquisitions.

According to the New York Post, this important change in WMG’s balance sheet could mean that a merger with EMI, a long talked about marriage—yet to be consumated, might actually have stronger than ever odds of success. “An EMI-WMG merger has always made sense, and with WMG’s newly strengthened balance sheet and the lights dimming on EMI, the stage may finally be set for a merger,” Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield commented yesterday (5/21).

On May 26, the Bluebird Cafe will host the Miller Harris Foundation Benefit Concert on May 26. The legendary venue will present two shows to benefit the Foundation, a private nonprofit organization established in 2002 by family and friends of Miller Harris, who died tragically from an asthmatic attack in September of 1999 while preparing for a golf outing with friends at the age of twenty-five. The Foundation has been set up to promote and support scholarships and organizations in Harris’ name. The benefit will consist of two shows. The 6:00 PM show will feature songwriters Lee Brice, Jerrod Niemann, Rob Hatch, Lance Miller and Eric Landis. At 9:00 PM, Jason Sellers, Thom Shepard, Halfway to Hazard, Luke Bryan and Dallas Davidson will perform in-the-round. For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.