- HeatherFest Reaches New Heights
- HeatherFest Reigns
- A PLACE TO BE BLUE
- Heatherfest 2000 Delivers a Blues Experience for All
HEATHERFEST REIGNS
by Jay Miller
The Patriot Ledger: Friday September 17, 2004
Sunday night marked the 10th annual HeatherFest, the annual Blues concert staged by superfan Heather McKibben at her Norton home. This year more than 300 folks came to hear performers ranging from Nicole Nelson to Toni Lynn Washington to Roomful of Blues. It was a benefit for injured drummer Kenny Gardiner, who was on hand promising to be back on stage himself next summer. Tiki torches everywhere suggested this was the real party to mark summer's end, never mind that Parrothead thing in Boston.
A PLACE TO BE BLUE
For Norton woman, live music is everything
by James A. Merola
Sun Chronicle Staff
Most people buy a house in a town for the educational system or the property value or, simply, the view. Heather McKibben bought a three-acre homestead here to hold an annual blues concert. "I bought my place because I was thinking about how much land I'd have for my party," she laughed.
About nine years ago, McKibben held a private party for 30 friends at her Canton home. One band played. Annually the party got bigger and bigger to a point where one musical group became eight groups and 30 of her closest friends grew to 500 friends of friends, many of whom she didn't know - and now, many of whom beg for an invitation. "The whole town knows about it," McKibben said. "I have a police detail. We turn the whole tiny town of Norton upside down. It's Blues. All Blues." The blues she refers to is the music not the police uniforms.
The bash was soon dubbed HeatherFest and for the last six years at McKibben's Norton home, it has grown in scope, size, and talent.
This year's Sept., 7th HeatherFest featured noted area blues bands such as Matthew Stubbs (winner of the 2003 Boston Battle of the Blues), Dave Howard & the High Rollers (who have opened for many national acts), the Chris Fitz Band (who won the BBB in 2000), and several others, culminating with renowned headliner Toni Lynn Washington. People come from as far as California and Tennessee to hear the act which McKibben hopes will include a rising young phenomenon, a national known female headliner next year.
"I can't tell you who it is yet until I get her," she smiles. "I have a website www.heatherfest.com. If I get her it will be on there! But if I do, I'd have to have riot police. I don't know what I'd do!"
Good friends provide the free planning and labor for the blues bash. McKibben has a secretary: a carpenter who builds the stage: fans who become sponsors, supplying T-Shirts each year at cost: and a cook who gets up at 6:00 A.M. to start the pig roast.
"I try something new and different every year," McKibben said. "This year someone made beer and called it HeatherFest brew. He's going to make five cases of homemade beer with the HeatherFest logo on the label."
To pay the music expenses, McKibben requests - but does not demand - donations. "I don't want to force anyone to pay," she said. "I pay for the party and all of the proceeds go to the musicians. They don't know how much money they are going to be paid until I send the checks, but they come down and play anyway. Then I give some of the money to a blues-related charity. This year's was Blues Trust Productions."
Year Long Project
The Dedham native works on the festival all year long, while maintaining an incredibly busy schedule, which includes but is not restricted to, her full time job as a Global account manager for a travel agency in Milford, and side jobs as a bartender at a blues club and usher at various musical venues throughout the Boston area."My love for music led me to work at the Tweeter Center and at the Orpheum in Boston," she said. She is also an avid Red Sox Fan.
McKibben's constant motion is even more remarkable , considering she was almost killed by a drunk driver when she was 21. She was paralyzed, spent months in the hospital, and has had numerous surgeries including six hip replacements and two spinal fusion operations.
Still, she walks fast, lives fast, plans fast, with a steady smile and a pronounced limp. "I don't remember what it was like before my accident," McKibben said. "I was a blues fan before, but I identified better with the blues after."
The license plate on her SUV reads "MSFEST." She drives it around these days, planning next year's event, with a lineup that she hopes will include all black female singers fronting Blues bands. She said it's the music that draws everyone to her home, and not once in the nine years that she's held her huge party has it ever rained.
Could she ever write a blues song about her one-day festival? "I can't," McKibben said. "It's too good a time."