Robert Mauriès: “We handed the keys of the festival over to women”

To celebrate its 45th anniversary, from July 9 to 11, 2026, the Cahors Blues Festival is unveiling a predominantly female lineup, staying true to the spirit of the blues while embracing a new generation of artists. For Blues Actu Radio, Sylvie Declas met with Robert Mauriès, president of France’s oldest blues festival.

If there were any concerns following the cancellation of the 2024 edition, the summer of 2025 completely reassured us about the health of France’s oldest blues festival. Its longevity, along with the quality of its programming, earned it a Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis in 2016.

For its 45th anniversary, the Cahors Blues Festival is opting for originality and freshness, with an almost exclusively female lineup and a strong focus on French talent.

🎙️ Robert Mauriès interviewed by Sylvie Declas

The announcement of the 2026 Cahors Blues Festival lineup came as a surprise. In a blues world still largely dominated by men, where did the idea of putting women at the forefront of the festival come from this year? How did you choose the artists?

Choosing artists is always complicated because they are all outstanding, and we know many of them personally. This year, we had the opportunity to hand over the keys to the festival, particularly the six headliners on the main stage, to female artists and bands.

In 1946, an article was added to the preamble of the French Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women and men in all areas of society. To mark the 80th anniversary of that milestone, we thought that while we had already organized evenings dedicated to women, this time we would dedicate the entire festival to women in the blues.

That is how the idea came about. Of course, there will still be male and female performers on the free village stage, as every year. But on the main stage, the spotlight belongs to women.

Do you think women approach blues and music differently than men?

That’s a difficult question because every artist is different, whether male or female. Women are just as deeply immersed in this music. Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, I’ve known their work all my life. I even had the chance to know Nina Simone personally and spend time talking with her.

The passion is the same. Sometimes it is even stronger than that of some men. What matters is that we’ve brought together a lineup of talented women, both young and more experienced, who represent the future of the blues. This year, that’s exactly what we’re celebrating at the Cahors Blues Festival.

The artists performing on both the main stage and the outdoor stage also show that this edition is giving a prominent place to French performers.

Absolutely. We have local, regional and national artists, some of whom have built international careers. Several have already performed at the festival in the past.

Yes, Kathy Boyé for example, and Gaëlle Buswell.

Exactly. Kathy Boyé, Gaëlle Buswell, and also Marlyn, who started out more in Americana before moving toward the blues. She now writes blues songs and has even composed one especially for Cahors, which will receive its premiere at this year’s festival.

I don’t want to put myself forward, but we’ve put together something really special. We motivated these artists and I can say with confidence that these three evenings are going to be magnificent. On top of that, in the new venue we introduced last year, with its 900-seat capacity, the atmosphere is much more intimate than it was outdoors. In fact, many audience members wrote to us after the 2025 edition and said, “Don’t change a thing, stay with what you did in 2025.”

It’s true that the Cahors Blues Festival has left the stifling city center, up there on the asphalt, and moved closer to the Lot River.

Yes, with the Valentré Bridge in the background. There’s actually a little story about that bridge. A small statue sits atop the central pillar, and it represents a devil. What better place to play the devil’s music than at the foot of the Valentré Bridge? He’ll be attending every concert. The blues has found its home in the Lot region.

As you mentioned, the lineup features a new generation of artists and forms of blues that go beyond traditional boundaries. We’ll hear blues, funk, rock, pop-rock and even African influences through Justina Lee Brown.

Justina Lee Brown is an African artist who grew up in the ghettos of Nigeria and has developed into a remarkable musician. She is absolutely extraordinary. The first time I saw her perform, I immediately thought she belonged among the greats, alongside artists such as Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and others.

She is an artist on the rise who is destined to break through. She even writes blues songs infused with strong African influences. She’ll be bringing African blues to Cahors. She has the voice, the charisma and everything needed to become one of the great women of the blues. She’s still young, but honestly, she’s the most exciting discovery I’ve made over the past twenty years.

The lineup includes Kathy Boyé, Alice Armstrong, Gaëlle Buswell, Justina Lee Brown, Marlyn Bend and Ghalia Volt. These are all strong personalities.

Absolutely. Take Gaëlle Buswell, for example. She first appeared in Cahors around 2006 and now opens for major international artists. I can name a few: John Fogerty, ZZ Top, UB40, Zucchero and Deep Purple.

She’s going to be fantastic. We discovered her in Cahors when she won our challenge competition and earned a spot on the main stage the following year. Her career took off from there. To give you an idea, she arranged a version of Hotel California by the Eagles for television, and that performance has reached more than 1.5 million views online. That says a lot about how successful she has become.

“The audience supports us, our partners support us, and so does the city.”

I’ve already seen several of these artists live, and they’re all incredible performers. Whether it’s Kathy Boyé, Ghalia Volt, Justina Lee Brown or Gaëlle Buswell, they all give so much on stage and are incredibly generous with their audiences.

Absolutely. Alice Armstrong as well, and Marlyn, who now writes blues music. I don’t want to leave anyone out. Kathy Boyé, for instance, has a wonderful show called Chicago to New Orleans. She’ll present an excerpt from that program on the festival’s opening night.

We can already see that ticket sales are moving in the right direction. The three evenings are attracting roughly the same level of interest. I’ll admit we’d like things to pick up a little because ever since Covid, people tend to wait until the last minute before buying tickets. It makes things more complicated.

We were fortunate to move into this venue thanks to the support of the city council. Otherwise, we simply couldn’t have continued with a 4,000-seat site. It’s impossible to attract 4,000 people if you focus exclusively on blues and remain faithful to the music. It’s very challenging to build that kind of audience.

Blues listeners are a bit different. Many people enjoy listening to blues, but true fans experience it in another way. We work within that reality and do our best. The audience supports us, our partners support us, and so does the city. We try to create something that will make people say, at the end of the festival, “Wow, that was amazing.” For us, that’s the greatest reward. I’ve been involved for twenty years now, and seeing our volunteers happy because the audience is happy remains one of the best feelings imaginable.

Speaking of volunteers, an event as important as the Cahors Blues Festival must require a huge amount of organization. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Like any major event, it requires a great deal of work. Fortunately, things have become easier. When we were outdoors, we needed around one hundred volunteers for the three days of concerts and the four-day festival. Today, about half that number is enough because an indoor venue is much easier to manage and secure than an open-air site.

We used to operate on a very expensive site, especially when it came to renting enclosed structures capable of hosting a thousand people. Now we’ve found a more economical solution, and the savings can be reinvested directly into the programming and activities that take place throughout the festival.

I understand that the Mississippi Blues Trail Challenge won’t be taking place this year. What about Blues in the City?

No decision has been made yet regarding Blues in the City. We’re still working on it, and I hope it will happen. It creates a wonderful atmosphere. We want to recreate that feeling you find in American blues towns and small communities, where music fills the streets and brings people together. The festival shouldn’t be reserved only for those who come to the venue.

As always, we’ll also have free afternoon showcases and outdoor concerts. Eight acts will perform, including solo artists, duos and full bands. Most are regional or French performers, and many have already reached the finals of the challenge in Memphis. These are highly talented musicians.

Can you tell us what makes the Cahors Blues Festival unique? What is the soul of this festival, and what are some of your fondest memories?

That’s an extremely interesting and extremely difficult question. What makes the Cahors Blues Festival unique is the fact that we’ve managed to keep it going for 44 years. And that’s not thanks to me, because I’ve only been involved for the past twenty years. The real achievement is the festival’s longevity, especially at a time when promoting this music has become increasingly difficult. Running a blues festival over several days is not easy.

Several festivals have disappeared this year. Others have changed direction and broadened their programming.

Exactly. They mix different styles and genres. At that point, it’s hard to keep calling it a blues festival. A classical music festival focuses on classical music. A baroque festival focuses on baroque music. A jazz festival focuses on jazz.

What makes Cahors special is that we’ve always remained faithful to the blues. We experimented a few times with broader programming and it worked very well in terms of attendance. Those were our biggest years, when artists such as Zucchero or Michel Jonasz appeared on the bill, artists who are not strictly blues performers. But that’s not really what we’re trying to do. What matters most is seeing people happy because of the blues, and presenting the music in all its forms.

We’re not opposed to rock’n’roll or rockabilly either, although perhaps not yet on the main stage. Some artists I’ve known for more than twenty years dream of playing the Cahors Blues Festival. There’s an incredible richness and diversity within the blues. Cahors has become a showcase for this music and for the people who love it. We don’t exclude anyone. This is our music.

As for my memories, there have been so many great artists in Cahors and therefore so many unforgettable moments. They all came through here: B.B. King, Buddy Guy and many others. Sadly, B.B. King is no longer with us, but artists like him left a lasting mark on the festival.

We also welcomed groups such as Earth, Wind & Fire. They arrived on a tour bus that became stuck under a bridge about fifteen kilometres from Cahors. The bus couldn’t move forward or backward. Local residents were called in to help push it free. They eventually made it to Cahors in time for the soundcheck, and the band ended up inviting the entire village. That’s the kind of memory you never forget.

We also had the Blues Brothers. We have plenty of stories involving them, especially when we staged a reunion featuring some of the surviving musicians connected to that adventure. It was wonderful. Every year brings new memories of artists who give everything they have on stage.

And because I travel to the United States every year for the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, I can tell you that Cahors is known throughout the blues world. People from all over Europe and beyond know the festival and want to perform here. The artists themselves often have fantastic memories of their time in Cahors because many of them stayed for several days. Friendships were formed, collaborations were born, and musicians spent time together.

On the old site, which was enormous, we had gradually lost some of the connection between artists and audiences because everything was spread out and backstage areas had to be secured. The feedback we receive today is that the new venue feels much more welcoming and intimate. This year, thanks to agreements with our production partners, a select group of festivalgoers invited by sponsors will even be able to attend afternoon soundchecks and see how artists prepare for their performances. That’s a unique opportunity.

Regarding ticketing, I noticed a category called “support ticket” benefiting the Centre for Information on Women’s and Families’ Rights in the Lot region. Where did the idea of supporting this organization come from?

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My colleagues and I wanted the festival to support a charitable organization. We decided to partner with the Centre for Information on Women’s and Families’ Rights because it ties in directly with the importance we wanted to give to women in this year’s festival.

It’s a national organization with a local branch in Cahors. They support women facing domestic violence, women going through difficult divorces, and many others who need legal guidance or assistance. They provide access to lawyers and a range of support services.

So we’re simply giving festivalgoers the option of adding a small two-euro contribution to the price of their ticket. It’s entirely voluntary and will go directly toward supporting the organization.

“The blues was originally a way of overcoming suffering.”

So Cahors is fully committed to supporting women this year.

Absolutely. It’s a major national cause. It’s really that simple. Nobody is required to contribute, the choice is entirely up to the audience. But if we can help while organizing a festival, then we should do it.

The blues was originally a way of overcoming suffering. We all know the history of the blues, so I won’t go into it in detail, but at the beginning, people sang in churches on plantations because slave owners were afraid they would communicate with one another. That’s where it started. The blues was born from slavery. It was a way of expressing pain and hardship.

Even today, in a developed country like France, many people face extremely difficult situations, whether in broken families, difficult separations or other hardships. If members of our audience want to support this cause, we’ll be delighted.

It’s a wonderful initiative. One final question, Robert Mauriès. You joined the Cahors Blues Festival volunteer team in 2006 and became president in 2012. Do you still have the same enthusiasm, and what keeps you motivated today?

That’s a difficult question, especially given the challenges facing festivals today. What I regret most, and this goes beyond the blues world, is the atmosphere that has developed on social media. There’s so much anger and so much passion directed at issues that are often based on misinformation. People seem to use these platforms simply to vent, and I don’t think that’s healthy.

That’s the negative side of things. It’s not related to the blues itself but to the broader cultural climate. More and more people seem to see culture as something secondary, even unnecessary. Yet culture is essential. Whether it’s painting, sculpture, literature or blues music, culture should never be treated as an adjustment variable.

Still, I refuse to become pessimistic. Whenever we launch a new initiative, there will always be criticism. Some people even criticized this year’s focus on women, which I find astonishing. But despite that, I remain motivated and passionate. I’m constantly looking for ways to ensure the festival continues and evolves.

Of course, I won’t be here forever. I’m getting older. Fortunately, I’m still healthy enough to keep going because organizing a festival is demanding, both physically and mentally. It’s not easy, especially in today’s environment.

This year we’ve also introduced a new ticketing option. We didn’t want to penalize families, so we created a very affordable two-night pass while keeping the traditional three-night pass available. We also continue to offer a range of discounted ticket options.

Thank you, Robert Mauriès, for your time, your explanations, and for your dedication and passion.

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about our festival. I’d also like to thank all the volunteers who help us every year. It’s not easy for them either. They give up their time and work hard to meet the expectations of an audience that quite rightly expects a great experience.

We do everything we can to ensure that the festival remains a celebration for many years to come. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak about it. I do so with great pleasure and passion because the blues is something truly special. Once the first note is played, all the worries disappear. Right now, though, we’re in the most difficult phase: the final preparations just before the festival begins.

Cahors Blues Festival 2026
📆 July 9–11, 2026
📍 Cahors, France
🌐 www.cahorsbluesfestival.com