TEN YEARS AGO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JOHNETTE ISHAM WAS TASKED TO LEAD Realize Bradenton’s arts-centered vision for the revitatlization of Downtown Bradenton. With a background in visual arts, Isham had the pizzazz and the neural network to turn the big, vague ideas on paper into tangible results in the real world. Today, residents up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast have heard of Bradenton’s Riverwalk, a lush riverfront green space with a skate park and public art installations, while Bradenton locals enjoy a seasonal farmer’s market and a monthly arts pop-up called Friendly City Flea. But no single facet of the plan more plainly demonstrates its vision—or Isham’s status as a mover and shaker—than the Bradenton Blues Festival.

The festival’s first edition came in 2012, and few know that its enormous success came in spite of Isham’s lukewarm acquaintance with music. “When we started the festival, I knew relatively nothing about music,” she says, let alone the blues that she would come to love and appreciate. A genre for the festival had not even been finalized until Blues Music magazine moved their headquarters to Bradenton. Isham, with her sharp eye and capacity for collaboration, says “the rest is history.” Now in its eighth year, the festival has come to represent the pinnacle of Realize’s mission—it showcases public art along the Riverwalk venue, highlights the natural beauty of the Manatee River, builds a strong sense of community and place, and, like any good revitalization effort, draws the kind of crowds that translate into cash for local business owners. This year, Realize has assembled another stellar roster of blues masters to help celebrate its 10th year.Featuring a buffet of styles from easy-listening and twangy back-porch blues to blues both funky and a little gritty, showgoers can expect sweeping guitar solos in pentatonic scales as well as some more traditional elements of blues music with a bit of storytelling, some heartbroken swooning and soaring female vocals. The festival opens Friday, December 6 with a free “blues appetizer” concert headlined by The Duffy Bishop Band. With awailing voice that channels Janis Joplin in her higher registers, Bishop has enjoyed a career spanning four decades. 

She has dabbled in musical theater both as a performer and costume designer, and often assumes a character for her live shows, giving her performances a splash of whimsy and a dash of burlesque. Some may laugh, others may blush, but all will raise their hands in witness of this formidable blues woman. The artist most primed to steal the show is Toronzo Cannon. A Chicago Transit Authority bus driver by day, Cannon was a star on the rise until the release of his first album turned his music career into a veritable supernova. His observations on the bus and in the nightclub inform the timeless everyman appeal of his lyrics, while the paradoxical wildness and control of his guitar work picks up where Hendrix left off. He still works as a bus driver, strategically using his PTO to enable him to bring his heavy, hard-hitting blues to venues
as far away as Japan.

 With such a staggering track record of bringing world-class acts to the Riverwalk stage, it would be easy to overlook all of the initiatives successfully launched from under the Realize umbrella. To build a strong network of cultural resources, it takes more than just creative placemaking and rock ’n’ roll. Toward these efforts, Realize uses the proceeds from the festival to fund free youth, art and music programs, including Blues in the Schools, which sees artists from the festival hold seminars aimed at encouraging young musicians to pursue a career in music. The organization also chases ancillary goals like developing entrepreneurship amongst Gen Z and Millennials, and the cumulative effects of Realize’s programs have won them numerous accolades like “National Civic Innovator” from the Knight Foundation and the “Future of the Region Award” from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

 And it’s not over for Isham and Realize. Rather than sit back and admire the first 10 years of their work, she and the organization continue to look to the future for more expansive arts programming and community-building. Beginning in 2020, Realize hopes to implement its Healthy Together Program, a neighborhood outreach initiative that benefits children and families with nutrition, art and cooking classes. There is also talk of a series of children’s books centered on educating and celebrating the area’s history. Realizing the vibrant vision of the master plan is a full-time job, but the prospect of the next 10 years still holds the promise of joy for Isham. “I love what I do and the people of Bradenton are amazing to work with,” she says. “That makes my work a joy.”