For those of you wanting to shift away from the doom and gloom of this past weekend, I submit the following Angela Woodall's article on the Art and Soul Festival.
Here are some excerpts from that article:
Music and people flowed through downtown streets Saturday, even before the noon opening of Oakland 's annual Art and Soul festival.
Ten city blocks around City Center and Frank H. Ogawa Plaza were covered with a seemingly endless variety of vendors selling everything from Cajun crawfish étouffée to alpaca shawls.
Nimble young acrobats turned flips in the middle of the closed-off streets, which are usually filled with cars instead of painters, ceramists, T-shirt printers, hat makers, book sellers, jewelry creators and dress designers showing off their wares.
Shirley Leeper, of San Leandro , was following the peel of singers echoing from the gospel stage on 12th Street and Broadway, where a choir used their vocal chords to warm up the crowd early in the afternoon. Leeper said she has attended the festival every summer for five or six years because of the diversity of people, vendors and music.
"It's very pleasant. Very likable," she said.
Singer and Grammy-award winner Shawn Colvin was the draw at the KFOG rock stage for three women from San Francisco , who attended Art and Soul for the first time.
"There's a little more variety here than street fairs in San Francisco ," Miriam Marriner said.
The size of the festival impressed Sarah Raymond. "You can easily spend all day here walking around," Meghan McDonough added.
Some of the headliners included:
On Saturday some of the headliners were Shawn Colvin, BoDeans, Ramana Vieira, Mo'Fone, Dear Indugu, Bishop Walter Hawkins, Kevin Moore and SEPIA
On Sunday, the headliners were Will Downing, Bobby Caldwell, Frankie Lee, Chino Espinoza & Los Dueños Del Son, Caravan of All Stars, Zakiya Hooker, Fito Reinoso and Su Ritmo Y Armonia
For a complete line-up of the headliners go to the Art & Soul Oakland site here
