Regional breweries, local art and big names in blues music provided top flight entertainment in JosephJoseph’s 10th annual Bronze, Blues and Brews Festival drew crowds from all over Oregon, Washington and Idaho this weekend. Tents and trailers covered several city blocks adjacent to the Joseph City Park, evidence of the nearly 2,000 people in attendance.

The festival started out as a weekend dance at the civic center in Joseph 10 years ago. The live music was a hit, so under the direction of Moonlight Graphics’ Chuck Garret, Joseph’s trademark bronzes were coupled with regionally brewed beers and the “best little fest in the northwest” was born.

This year, the festival featured five live bands, combining for 10 hours of continuous blues music. The show began at noon on Saturday with an Oregon artist, Mark Lemhouse, and it wrapped up at 10 p.m. that evening with headliner Tinsley Ellis of Atlanta. Gary Court, a former Wallowa County resident and a longtime fan of blues music, has been in charge of booking the bands since the start of the festival. All five bands featured this year were well known on the blues circuit, and many of them were nominees of the prestigious W.C. Handy award.

The high quality line-up was noticed and appreciated by attendees at the show. “They really stepped it up a notch with the bands this year,” said Andy Vernarsky of Enterprise. Visitor Phil Whitford agreed, saying “Michael Burks was amazing.”

The grassy dance area below the stage began to fill up as the day cooled off, and by the time Tinsley entered the stage, the floor was packed. After a long, hot day of sampling brews from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, and Wallowa County’s own Terminal Gravity Brewing Company, blues fans were ready to dance.

As a family event, the festival was a time to celebrate for all ages. Those who were too young to sip on brews passed the afternoon in the park’s playground, dancing in the grass and enjoying one another’s company. Teenagers played hacky-sack by the river and bought snacks from the several vendor tents lining the west side of the park. Price Both of Lostine, 14, enjoyed collecting empty plastic mugs and discarded stickers left outside the beer garden, but the highlight of his day was seeing family friends.

“It’s good to see people I haven’t seen in awhile,” Both said. The festival has turned into a yearly end-of-summer tradition, where schoolmates see each other for the first time in months and college students home for the summer reunite with friends, teachers and co-workers.

Although a large number of Wallowa County residents were in attendance, Garrett said that approximately 70 percent of the crowd was from outside the area, brought in by advertisements in various blues society magazines, radio stations and internet sites.

To complete the event, Joseph’s Valley Bronze of Oregon donated an assortment of bronzes cast by local artists for viewing during the show. Visitors enjoyed the photo opportunity, and the display in the park brought a taste of Wallowa County’s well-known art form to the festival.

As the music drew to a close on Saturday evening, the temperature dropped and people kept dancing in order to keep warm. After the last song, people gathered up their blankets and chairs from the lawn and hurried home to escape the chilly August night. Yet, the air was already abuzz with people reminiscing about their favorite song, their favorite beer or their funniest dance move – and making plans for next year.