Photo Credit: Eric Kabik

On Sept. 4, Las Vegas’ Big Blues Bender kicked off with the HART Party benefit, rounding up an all-star squad of blues artists alongside the Bender Brass Band Septet to set off this year’s Sin City festivities and raise money for a good cause. Through the course of the evening, such blues torchbearers as Jimmy Vivino, Dale Spalding, Victor Wainwright, John Németh and more took the storied stage of the Westgate Resort & Casino’s International Theater, but it was the penultimate act that was the evening’s true highlight. After a thrilling set from Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia, the Blood Brothers welcomed a guest spot from none other than Bill Murray, who shut down the performance with two anthemic covers.

“Mike, Al, would you mind if I sang a couple?,” the legendary comedian called out to his fellow Chicagoans and friends as he sauntered onstage.

Castiglia, pivoting from a fake-out farewell to the crowd, agreed, wryly comparing the unexpected sit-in to a previous encounter with the Bulls’ iconic ‘90s power forward: “This is gonna be damn better than when Dennis Rodman sat in with me 10 years ago in Fort Lauderdale. I seriously considered a career change after that. It was Pearl Jam, and ‘We Want the Funk.’ It ran for 45 minutes, and he gave me a noogie.” Never missing a chance to riff, Murray gave the blues singer and guitarist another celebrity noogie for the memoirs before assuming the spotlight.

Murray kicked off his session with the 1957 Larry Williams standard “Slow Down” (popularized by The Beatles), rocking along to the slow burner with his gravelly tenor. Energy came to the head with the follow-up of “Like a Rolling Stone,” which brought the crowd to its feet as the entertainment titan belted through the Bob Dylan classic alongside a rousing chorus from the Blood Brothers duo Bender Brass Band. 

The HART Party kickoff raised a tidy sum of $107,000 for The Chair of Blues Foundation’s Handy Artist Relief Trust, which will go to support medical and funeral expenses for the performers who have kept the genre’s legacy alive for all these years. After the applause, the festival’s Executive Producer AJ Gross commented that “The show is a taste of what Big Blues Bender is all about.”

Big Blues Bender comes into full swing today and will run through Sunday, Sept. 8 with performances from Beth Hart, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Los Lobos, Tab Benoit and many more. The 10th annual iteration of the Vegas institution is once again sold out. For more information on the celebration, visit bigbluesbender.com.

Watch Murray’s rousing “Like a Rolling Stone” below, and get an inside look at the performance in a gallery courtesy of photographer Eric Kabik