We may be a week or so away from the summer solstice, but with temperatures hovering in the low 80s, the smell of frying oil in the air, and the sound of sultry guitars echoing throughout Chevy Court at the NYS Fairgrounds, it sure felt like summer on Saturday night at the 2026 New York State Blues Festival.
Since 1992, the NYS Blues Festival has hosted some of the leading local and national blues acts. Saturday night concluded the three-day festival with one of the leading guitar legends of our time, Gary Clark Jr. and an up-and-coming star in the making, Eddie 9V.
It was the kind of evening that lent itself to pondering eternal, unanswerable questions: What is the blues? How can it take on so many different flavors? Speaking of flavors, how do they deep fry an Oreo?
I enjoyed a deep-fried Oreo while the NYS Blues Fest musicians brought the deep-fried guitars.
