 The festival was organized and used as a fund raiser by KKJZ, a publicly supported radio station on the CSULB campus broadcasting blues and jazz in Southern California.The Festival was started in 1980 by jazz radio station KLON (later renamed to KKJZ) in Long Beach, California under the direction of Bernie Pearl, who was the host of a blues program "Nothing But The Blues" on KLON at the time.The first Festival was a one-day event titled the "KLON Blues & Gospel Festival" held at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach, drawing only a small crowd of 700, resulting in loss of $7,000 for the radio station.