Richard King talks up this year’s Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival

Now in its ninth year, Columbia, Missouri’s Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival has never been stronger — thanks, in part, to a man who has long been a figure of Columbia’s music scene: Richard King.

King made headlines last November when, after 34 years, he sold his iconic music venue, the Blue Note, along with its sister venue, Mojo’s. But getting out of the club business didn’t mean getting out of the music business, and King has devoted the extra time he has had to Roots N Blues N BBQ. This year’s lineup features 30 acts from just about every branch on the roots-and-blues tree, including major names Lucinda Williams, Buddy Guy, Dwight Yoakam, Brandi Carlile, and Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.

Ahead of the festival’s kickoff on Friday, September 25, I called King to chat about the evolution of the festival and its place in Columbia.

The Pitch: You’ve been involved with the Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival since the beginning. Tell me how your role began.

King: The festival was started nine years ago by Boone County National Bank — now called the Central Bank of [Boone County] — and they were celebrating 150 years of service to Boone County and the general mid-Missouri area, and their marketing company approached me. They wanted to do something a little different to celebrate the anniversary. They wanted to present a big concert in downtown Columbia, and that was sort of the embryonic stages of the festival. They wanted my help with booking the acts, and I was intrigued. I thought, “This is something that could be really cool, so count me in.” That was the first year, and it was a free event in downtown Columbia and was pretty massively successful.

Columbia over the years has really changed. I’ve been here since 1975, and the population has practically doubled since I moved here [from Pennsylvania]. The student population has gone from something like 22,000 to 35,000. There’s been a tremendous amount of growth, and it’s a great place to live — and it’s almost growing too fast for some people. The first year we did it, we thought it was going to be a one-year deal, and then we’d be done. But the response was so positive from the community that we thought, “Hey, let’s do this again.” It’s always had tremendous support in the area, and we’ve enjoyed watching it grow every year.

The lineup this year includes Lucinda Williams and Brandi Carlile. How much of that is an effort to appeal to a broader audience?

We’re trying to get a little more of the student population in Columbia, and some of the bands are part of that plan. But I think we have a solid foundation, and I don’t want to stray very far from what we’re doing, to be honest. I think our mission has been consistent over the years, and the main focus will always be — for me, anyway — the music. Obviously, they’re not all mainstream artists, they’re not all common names, and there’s not very many top-40 acts and stuff like that, and we do that because people look forward to us bringing the Punch Brothers in or bringing Junior Brown in. It’s a mix that we try to be very careful with. Introducing new and established artists that don’t have huge record success, as well as, of course, the Brandi Carliles and the Lucinda Williamses of the world.

Last November, you sold both the Blue Note and Mojo’s. What’s next for you?

So, I ran the Blue Note for 34 years, but in 2012, I had an aortic-valve complication, which is a major valve in your heart, and had open-heart surgery. After I had the surgery, you start thinking about things, and I thought, “Maybe it’s time for someone else to take over.” The two gentlemen that bought the Blue Note [Matt Gerding and Scott Leslie] had been talking about buying it for years — they’re great guys, they know what they’re doing — and I just thought this was the right time.

It actually took me several months to get used to the fact that I didn’t have to go in and work at the clubs every day. And I thoroughly enjoyed that lifestyle. It took awhile to get used to not having that. I did some things immediately. I took both of my sons on vacation, my wife and I took a vacation, and I just did some things that I always wanted to do. And after I got back on planet Earth after all that, I made a commitment to being more hands-on with the festival. Actually, what I’m doing today is delivering pocket guides for the festival [to businesses] all over Columbia. My commitment to the festival has always been there, but they’re seeing more of me now. Anything that needs to be done, I’m doing it. I’m a lot more involved.

What does that mean for the future of the festival?

After each year, there’s always something we can do better — there’s always an artist out there that we’re missing. Those are the things that, in October and November, we’ll sit down and evaluate: everything that we did right, everything we did wrong, improvements we can make to our customers and our bands and the venue. We’ll just dig in and start doing it.