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If there is anything Louisiana does better than any other place in the country, it’s put on a street festival. Ranging in scale from little church fairs to Jazz Fest, we cannot escape the lure of munching on alligator-on-a-stick while standing in line to get beer tickets. The Baton Rouge Arts Council’s Fest For All gets the season started off with a bang: Eighty visual artists from all around the country will have booths set up, countless food vendors will fill the air with diet-breaking aromas and, of course, three live music stages. This year, thanks to Mayor Kip Holden, one stage will be dedicated to Baton Rouge’s formidable blues heritage. Here is but a taste of what’s on the menu:

REV. ROB AND THE ORIGINAL SINNERS

Go anywhere in this town on the weekend, and you are likely to hear Rob Payer’s Rhythm Revue playing a vista of classic rock ’n’ roll and R&B extending beyond the usual crowd pleasers. If you were lucky, you experienced his song-for-song interpretation of the Beatles’ White Album at Phil Brady’s last year. “There is a great tradition of party bands in this city, from John Fred and the Playboys to the Cold to the US Times to Dash Rip Rock, and we want to be a part of that tradition,” says Payer (an ordained minister who has performed the ceremonies for Kenny Acosta and Sundanze) about his project a perfect marriage of great R&B hits, British invasion rarities and punk rave-ups. The Original Sinners are definitely more than the sum of their covers tunes—more like a perfect mix tape where Johnny Cash, The Ramones and The Kinks all reside in perfect sequence.

Rev. Rob and the Original Sinners get things rolling at 12:30 p.m. on the Fest For All Budweiser Stage on Sunday, May 7, 2006.

LIL’ RAY NEAL

“People come up and say, ‘Man, you sound just like the guy on that record.’ And that’s because I am that guy on the record,” says Lil’ Ray Neal after an incendiary run through a Bobby “Blue” Bland tune at Teddy’s Juke Joint a couple weeks ago. This is no idle boast. Lil’ Ray, son of the late Rayful Neal, has been the principal guitar player for Bland and has played with such blues titans as Little Milton and Bobby Rush. His incredible stage presence and command of his Gibson make his show one of the finest musical experiences you will have in this city. There are good musicians and then there are great ones, and we have one of those treasures in Lil’ Ray Neal.

Lil’ Ray Neal appears on the Fest For All Blues Stage at 2 p.m., Saturday, May 6, 2006.

ELSAH

The alt-country thing may be frittering away from what it once was, with torchbearers Wilco trying to become the new ELO. Fortunately, there are plenty of local groups that keep the fire going, and Elsah is one of the best. Led by the dual threat of Boykin Short’s incendiary strafing runs on the guitar and Neil Werries’ raspy tales of love and whiskey, Elsah delivers a visceral and literary take on the genre. A recent deconstruction of the old blues staple “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” will go down as one of the more transcendent rock moments I’ve seen in years.

Elsah appears on the Fest For All Budweiser Stage at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, May 6, 2006.