San Francisco's decades-old annual blues festival has been canceled this year due to lack of funding, and may be discontinued altogether, festival organizers have announced.
"The combination of rising production costs and lack of sponsorship support leaves me no choice but to cancel this year's show," festival founder Tom Mazzolini said in a statement Wednesday.
"I'm sad to say this, but we may well have seen the last San Francisco Blues Festival," he said.
The festival, which began in 1973 and was held each September, featured performances over the years by internationally known blues legends, including John Lee Hooker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Taj Mahal and Albert King, as well as performers from the Bay Area blues scene.
Organizers said it was the country's longest running blues festival.
