Performing at Bluesfest 2011

After scooping the Australian Event of the Year award in 2010, the Byron Bay Bluesfest was going to have to come up with something pretty special in 2011 . . . so just feast your ears on this selection of artists from the lineup, the backbone of a six-day Easter weekend get-together featuring Bob Dylan ("Maggie's Farm") in pride of place, accompanied by hirsute Texan rockers ZZ Top ("Sharp Dressed Man") and blues legend B.B. King ("The Thrill Is Gone"). Thanks to Bluesfest, we get to concoct a playlist in which Wolfmother vies for attention with Los Lobos, and where master classes are conducted by Toots and the Maytals (reggae) and the Meters (funk).

Acoustic Latin rock, jazzy reggae . . . Bluesfest is all about music's wealth of styles, as you'll hear in Next Steps.

Few sounds carried on the winds across the Tyagarah Tee Tree Farm campgrounds will embrace a haunting beauty to equal that of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu's "Wirrpangu," so we've captured it in the ether, as well as other standout tracks by Bluesfest 2011 artists, including Rodrigo y Gabriela, blazing their acoustic trail through a 2005 live rendition of "Diabolo Rojo," and re-formed country-rock veterans the Dingoes — "Not Worth Fighting For" appears on 2010 comeback album, Tracks. C.W. Stoneking mixes a powerful strain of musical voodoo with "The Love Me or Die," and Ernest Ranglin weaves strands of reggae and jazz into "Surfin'."

Peruvian SalSoul, Darwinian folk . . . Bluesfest 2011 evolves through our Deep Cuts.

Eclecticism and variety are cornerstones of the Bluesfest credo, and here we get a taste of the festival's uniquely flavoured sonic gumbo, as Peru's Cecelia Noel — aka the Latin Tina Turner — heats up our Deep Cuts with the Xtended Version of "Everybody's Mambo" and shares space with Darwin circuit mainstay Leah Flanagan, whose mixed Australian, Irish and Italian heritage explains the unusual accents of "September Song." Young indie-blues superstar Grace Woodroofe tears through "Bear" like a she-wolf, Lowrider blends funk and soul on "Taking Control" and Resin Dogs pick up the party vibe with "Sidesplitter."

Whether you call it by its fully blown moniker — the East Coast International Blues & Roots Music Festival — or you just go with the modern-day tag, Byron Bay Bluesfest, the essence is the same: great music, featuring legendary artists, set in a mellow rustic festival location over the long Easter weekend. Last year marked the event's 21st anniversary, and the inaugural shindig at new permanent location, Tyagarah Tee Tree Farm, so the 2011 event has taken that lead and gone one better, adding a sixth day, and laying on a roster that includes the great man himself, Mr. Bob Dylan, along with other hoary old grovers Leon Russell and George Clinton, and younger guns including Washington and Eli 'Paperboy' Reed. Once again, Easter just got Byronified.