The dock that inspired Otis Redding’s chart-topping 1968 hit was located in Sausalito, but the incandescent soul man’s Bay Area legacy will be reverberating 35 miles northeast on Vallejo’s waterfront during the third annual Mare Island Dock of Bay Music Festival.

The outdoor concert doesn’t focus exclusively on local artists, but the event tracks half a century of Bay Area soul, from 1960s mainstays Lydia Pense and Cold Blood and 1970s pacesetters Con Funk Shun to contemporary acts Monophonics and Fantastic Negrito.

在决定发起弗雷泽载体的礼物ly inauspicious year of 2021, when the pandemic’s long shadow made the prospect of bankrolling a new music festival a stomach-churning undertaking, Dock of Bay has survived and even expanded into a two-day affair, set this year for Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 9-10.

“The first two years were lessons learned, that we needed some brand-name acts to get people out to a venue they probably don’t know,” saxophonist Kevin Frazier told the Chronicle on a recent phone call with production partner Jeff Trager.

While they still focus on local artists, Saturday’s Old School Funk Fest program includes Prince proteges Morris Day and the Time along with Scottish R&B hitmakers Average White Band, both enduring groups “that have radio hits that have carried over for generations,” Frazier said. “My son is 22 and listens to Morris Day and Average White Band.”

Billed as the Spectacular Soul Fest, Sunday’s program opens with the Altons, a rising Latin-tinged soul band from Los Angeles that just finished a tour with Los Lobos. The rest of the day features a Bay-centric R&B triumvirate with the smooth soul of Monophonics, the roots blues of Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito and the New Orleans-steeped R&B of the California Honeydrops, “which really shows what a melting pot of fantastic music we have here,” Trager said.

For artists who spend much of their time on the road, it’s an all-too-rare opportunity to convene with other acts devoted to various shades of the expansive funk/soul spectrum. For a region with a deep history of popular Black musical innovation before the advent of hip-hop, the legacy of artists like Johnny Otis, Etta James, and Sly and the Family Stone isn’t often celebrated.

“There hasn’t been a Bay Area festival really focused on the genre of R&B, funk and soul,” said Monophonics vocalist, keyboardist and producer Kelly Finnigan. “In that way, Dock of the Bay is really unique.”

In between acts on the main stage, the Chef de Cuisine Stage by the food court features rising artists and Bay Area performers with strong local followings, like Berkeley’s Destani Wolf. Her career has taken her around the world, from her early years fronting the Latin soul band O-Maya to her Southern California sojourn collaborating with the likes of Los Angeles R&B singer-songwriter Shuggie Otis, British soul singer Alice Russell and Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli.

In the years before the pandemic, Wolf performed internationally as the ringmaster of the Cirque du Soleil show “Bazzar,” which was built around her lustrous voice. These days she’s spending much of her time collaborating withBobby McFerrinin his a cappella quintet Motion (which performs every Monday afternoonat Freight & Salvage). But she’s also been writing and releasing her own fervently uplifting soul songs.

In a gratifying moment of paying forward the break she received from Trager, Wolf recommended MeloDious, which landed the Oakland trio of teenage siblings Sunday’s second set on the Chef de Cuisine Stage, where there are several other acts to watch out for.

“When I was first coming up, Jeff really believed in me and set me up with my first regular gig at Iron Horse Cocktails on Maiden Lane in San Francisco,” she said. “I was going to S.F. State, trying new tunes, singing jazz and blues. He would bring all kinds of cats through, guys fromSantana’s band, to listen to me.”

No artist better represents the way Bay Area soul reverberates through the eras than the Monophonics’ Finnigan. He’s the son of revered keyboardist and vocalist Mike Finnigan (1945-2021), who recorded only a few albums under his own name but made his mark as a show-stealing sideman. A San Francisco and Marin resident in the first half of the ’70s, he worked with everyone from Jimi Hendrix andTower of Powerto Taj Mahal andBonnie Raitt. James, the singer affectionately known as Miss Peaches, particularly loved to feature Mike Finnigan’s blue-eyed belting.

Kelly Finnigan grew up mostly in Los Angeles surrounded by musical icons, and by the time he joined Monophonics in 2010, he was a studio veteran with a silky voice and supple keyboard touch. With founding members Austin Bohlman on the drums and trumpeter Ryan Scott co-leading the band with him, Monophonics has attracted an avid following while playing major local festivals likeOutside Lands,Stern GroveandHardly Strictly Bluegrass.

The band’s ambitious new concept album,Sage Motel, is inspired by the work of artists directly connected to other Dock of Bay acts, particularly Donny Hathaway, who produced Cold Blood’s 1972 album “First Taste of Sin.”

“I’ve always looked at Cold Blood with a lot of admiration,” Finnigan said. “Lydia is a powerhouse, and they’ve got a great rhythm section. In my opinion, they’re the little brother to Tower of Power, but didn’t get as much praise and shine.”

At the Dock of Bay Music Festival, it’s never too late for a band’s ship to come in.

Andrew Gilbert is a freelance writer.