The upcoming River City Ohio Blues Competition will feature acts both familiar and new, coming from near and far.

"We've luckily been able to develop a reputation around the country, really, as one of the best competitions," said Steve Wells, longtime producer and emcee of the event. "One of the things that makes our competition unique is we don't have any geographic restrictions."

While 10 of the bands do hail from Ohio - including Doc Dalton & The Healing, from Caldwell - five more states are represented among the seven other acts performing Friday and Saturday at the Lafayette Hotel on Front Street in Marietta.

Wells said the lack of geographical limitations has occasionally drawn in a band from another area thinking they can easily win the small-town competition and the local Blues, Jazz and Folk Music Society's sponsorship to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.

"It doesn't exactly work that way," Wells laughed.

The bands will be vetted by a panel of judges that includes Sean Carney, from the Columbus-based Sean Carney Band that won the prestigious Memphis competition in 2008; as well as Dennis McClung, a two-time winner of the local competition; and local musician Jonathan Seymour.

For Travis Weisenborn, singer and guitarist for the three-member Weisenborn Project from Athens, winning would be icing on the cake.

"Really what my goal is is to share my interpretation of modern blues with people," he said. "I think that 'modern blues' encompasses all the different genres that have been included in the blues since the beginning."

Weisenborn said his band - which formed on the campus of Ohio University and includes bass player Tyler Lovell and drummer Jeff Mellott - incorporates aspects of jazz, funk and other blues offshoots and brings them back into the blues fold.

Some people might think of the blues as a downhearted style of music, but Weisenborn said that's only one aspect.

"You can convey all kinds of different messages - happy blues, sad blues, junk blues," he said.

The Weisenborn Project has played in the Pioneer City before at the Marietta Brewing Company and has also performed in Athens, Zanesville, Lancaster, Dover and New Philadelphia. This will be their first competition.

Meanwhile, Gallipolis-based Magic Mama Latte is making its second trip to the local competition.

"It was such a great experience," lead singer Jenny Walker said of the group's appearance in 2009. "We made it to the finals and didn't win, but just being in the competition raised our game."

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