Avenue for the blues

Now the streets of Rome are filled with rubble, so wrote Dylan, and you can go barrelin’ down the boulevard lookin’ for the heart of Saturday night, as Tom Waits lyricized.

But when it comes to the blues, the place to find them is along Reid Avenue, on a sunny afternoon such as last Saturday, when a sizeable crowd took in the Blues on Reid street festival, sponsored by the Gulf County Chamber of Commerce.

Kaylah August, from Sopchoppy, gets into the spirit of the music through dance. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Preschooler Nolan Corbine, and his mom Cristina Corbine, from Yorkville, Illinois outside Chicago, were visiting family in Mexico Beach and took in the Blues on Reid event. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

The Cat Daddy Blues Band jammed in the late afternoon. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Port St. Joe elementary school art teacher Kelly Deal, front left, works on painting the face of Crystal Reid, visiting from Liberty, South Carolina, while Laura Barkalow, back left, the children’s pastor at the PSJ UMC Church, creates a design for Port St. Joe first grader Whitley Tune. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Donna Johnson, from St. Joe Beach, holds up one of her creations, made from wood from the now defunct Fish House in Mexico Beach, while her husband Claude sits at right. ‘He totes, he carries,” she said. “He’s the lifter.” [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

David Hansel, who offers tie dye lessons at The Joe Center for the Arts, shows Nancy Culver how to create a t-shirt at his vendor booth. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Katie Nunnery, from Wewahitchka, said she had a good day working with her mom, Terry Nunnery, at her Opal and Ivy clothing store housed in a 1963 Ambassador Airstream. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Matthew Caton, who does graphite drawings of scenes from around the area, holds up a rendering of a shrimp boat in Carrabelle. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Aided by a load of sponsors, and a large crop of street vendors, the audience, content to relax in the folding chairs they brought with them, took in a vibrant array of blues musicians beginning with JC and The Backscratchers at noon, and ending with an early evening jam by headliner Bobby Blackmon.

In between, the audience, and a modest smattering of exuberant listeners who could not resist the impulse to dance, enjoyed Corey Hall Music, Kelly $ the Healers and The Cat Daddy Blues Band.

Vendors said they did well, t-shirts were all but gone by the end of the day and by all accounts it was a hot time in the old town.