Long Beach Blues Fest Starts Today : Music: The two-day event seeks to present different styles with the major artists in each.

“This is everything about the blues on one weekend,” boasts Ken Poston, producer and artistic director of the 12th annual Long Beach Blues Festival, which will take over the Cal State Long Beach athletic field today and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. “The concept,” Poston says, “is to represent all the different styles of blues with the major artists in each.”

It is harder to get more major than B. B. King, the legendary “King of the Blues” who headlines Sunday. Bobby (Blue) Bland, best known for his “blues ballads,” also performs Sunday. John Lee Hooker, a Mississippi Delta blues man whose career started in the 1940s, is on tap for today.

A newer strain of blues will be heard on the 70-foot-wide tented stage today when Robert Cray and the Memphis Horns headline with their fusion of rock, rhythm and blues, gospel and jazz.

Today also will see the reunion of Jay McShann, an exponent of rough-and-tumble Kansas City blues, and the exuberant Jimmy Witherspoon, who worked with McShann’s band in the mid-1940s. “This will be fun,” Poston promises. “You don’t get to see them together very much.”

Also on hand: Big Jay McNeely, whom Poston calls “a founder of the rock ‘n’ roll style with the honking rhythm ‘n’ blues saxophone” (Sunday); Koko Taylor, Chicago’s howlin’ “Queen of the Blues” (today); the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, legendary gospel singers who got together when they were schoolboys in the early 1940s (Sunday), and the Blues Brothers Band (Sunday).

There’ll be some emerging blues people, too: Dave Specter and Barkin’ Bill Smith, who kick things off today, won a national blues talent search conducted this year by KLON-FM, the listener-supported jazz station that sponsors the festival.

The Long Beach festival started as a one-day event, with local blues people performing on the back of a flatbed truck parked on the athletic field. From those small beginnings, it has become one of the largest gated blues festivals in the country, drawing between 12,000 and 15,000 people a day.

Festival-goers are enthusiastic enough to start lining up at 6 a.m. so they can rush to grab the best spots when gates open at 10.

But, Poston maintains, big has not become Gargantuan. “It still maintains the flavor it’s always had, kind of like a picnic setting,” he says. “People bring their kids and spread beach chairs and blankets out on the lawn.”

A lot of the blues fans tote their own food, but 30 vendors have plenty to sell, including barbecue, Mexican, Chinese, pizza, hamburgers and hot dogs. Beer, wine coolers and soft drinks are also available.

Festival emcee Bubba Jackson calls the blues a part of Americana. “It’s us, authentic, real music,” he said. “What you hear and feel is what you get.”

The 12th annual Long Beach Blues Festival takes place today and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Cal State Long Beach’s north athletic field, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach. Tickets: $22.50 daily in advance; $25 at the gate. Information: (213) 985-5566 days; (213) 597-9911, evenings, weekend.

The Blues From Beginning to End

Saturday

11 to 11:45 a.m.: Dave Specter and Barkin’ Bill Smith.

12:05 to 1:25 p.m.: Jay McShann and Jimmy Witherspoon.

1:45 to 2:45 p.m.: Koko Taylor and her Blues Machine.

3:05 to 4:05 p.m.: John Lee Hooker and the Coast to Coast Blues Band.

4:25 to 5:25 p.m.: Robert Cray and the Memphis Horns.

Sunday

11 a.m. to noon: the Five Blind Boys of Alabama.

12:20 to 1:20 p.m.: Big Jay McNeely with the Rocket 88s.

1:40 to 2:40 p.m.: Bobby (Blue) Bland.

3 to 4 p.m.: the Blues Brothers Band.

4:20 to 5:20 p.m.: B. B. King.