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Los Lobos, the Grammy-winning Latin roots-rock band, headlining a blues festival?

It’s a question Marty Kool, one of Tucson’s leading blues cheerleaders and champions, has been getting a lot of lately.

“Lobos comes from East LA and East LA is a bastion of blues. While they are genre busting, a lot of their stuff comes from the blues and R&B from East LA,� he said.

But Kool, host of KXCI’s Marty Kool’s Blues Review show, said the larger reason that the organizers, Arizona Blues Heritage Foundation, tapped the band for the festival is sheer marketing.

“I think the idea was the hope they could draw a bigger crowd with a bigger name,� he said, and from what they can see, it’s working.

“So far from what I understand, advance ticket sales are two to three times what they were last year,� he said, adding that attendance could be 2,000 to 3,000 for the festival Sunday, Oct. 16. “We couldn’t have done it with some other band. Lobos is so popular around Southern Arizona.�

Los Lobos joins a lineup that includes San Diego blues singer Missy Andersen in her third Tucson appearance since making her local debut at Boondocks Lounge in summer 2015, and several popular homegrown blues artists: Heather “Lil Mama� Hardy and her band, Tom Walbank and Friends, South Tucson’s The Garcia Brothers and the Amphi High School Funky Panthers.

The blues festival returns to Reid Park where it had been held until three years ago, when the festival moved to Rillito Park, but Kool said a change in Rillito’s management led them to return to Reid.

The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.