Hammond Headlines Big Time Blues Fest

The annual Big Time Blues Festival in Long Beach will return for its fourth year when acoustic firebrand John Hammond tops a daylong bill July 14 at Gemmrig Park.

The lineup also will include Chicago’s Magic Slim & the Teardrops, guitarist Long John Hunter from Texas and local blues mainstays James Harman, Harmonica Fats & Bernie Pearl and Flat Top Tom & His Jump Cats. The show will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the park, 7390 E. Carson St. Tickets are $18 to $21, free for children under 12. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster) or (310) 426-4616.

Meanwhile, a series of Sunday blues shows has started at the Laguna Beach Brewing Co. 422 S. Coast Highway. Upcoming shows include Carl Verheyen and Kris Wiley, June 30 at 6 p.m.; “Ladies Sing the Blues,” an all-female jam to benefit the Battered Women’s Shelter of Orange County (the lineup includes Kris Wiley, Debbie Kay and Jill Sharpe), July 7 at 8 p.m.; and the Walter Trout Band, July 21 at 8 p.m. Admission to all shows is $5. (714) 494-2739.

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Fans of Kerry Getz will have to get used to a new wrinkle. A fixture on the local coffeehouse and club scene since 1982, she has decided to bill herself under her new, married name, Kerry McCartney.

“I struggled over it,” said the Newport Beach resident, who has been married since October. “I was getting tired of the Getz jokes: ‘Do you always get what you want?’ I figured, if I’m going to get married, it’s got to be a name with musical recognition attached to it.”

After a nightmarish experience two years ago trying to make her first album (Getz--no, McCartney--says that her production deal went sour and that she wound up with nothing), she is getting ready to try again. She expects to record in July and to have a CD out in September.

A fab solo performer, she has a full local concert schedule as she breaks in her new name, including a free performance June 27 at noon in the entertainment courtyard at Triangle Square in Costa Mesa.

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Freebie performances this week at the Virgin Megastore in Triangle Square include blues man Keb Mo today at 6:30 p.m. and folk-pop singer Vonda Shepard on Thursday at 6 p.m.