ST. GERMAIN – At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, it was announced that the beef brisket was gone – not gone-gone, but resting comfortably in tummies after passing by the lips of hundreds of appreciative fans at the annual Joe Bucher Blues Fest on Saturday at the St. Germain Community Park pavilion.
Undoubtedly, the authentic Memphis-style ribs and pulled pork sandwiches were to be next on the short list after four hours of frantic food serving. For this day was one-half blues fest, one-half barbecue feast.
“Oh, it’s great,” said visitor Dale Lang, of Rhinelander, as he paused with a plate of food. “Gotta eat first. Looking forward to a good day.”
Outside the pavilion, four smokers lazily puffed smoke as BBQ pitmasters JD Dutton, Sr. and Sam Wilson hustled to prep the various meats. Assisting were other members of the competition smoker team: JD Dutton, Jr., Haskel Parker, Andy Huss and Austin Huss.
The smoker team started cooking at 6 p.m. Friday night. Wilson said they prepared 320 pounds of pork butt, 75 racks of ribs and 40 pounds of brisket. He touches on the reason the brisket went so fast:
“We have improved it,” he said of the recipe. “When I started doing this three years ago, we tried it a way. Then I go out to different barbecue places around the country and learn new recipes like I did for the brisket. I was actually down in Texas and I asked the guys, ‘Hey, how do you cook your brisket.’ And they told me.
“I said OK, I’m going try that at Joe Bucher’s Blues Fest. But before I do that, I’m going to test it at home. So I tested it at home on a brisket. It was great. My neighbors loved it. So I said this should work. So I did it up here. Joe said it was awesome. Everybody said it was awesome. So now we have a brisket recipe.”
Giving back to the community
At the head of it all, Joe Bucher took stock of this 19th annual Blues Fest that over the years has raised umpteen thousands of dollars for area youth sports programs from purchasing equipment to sending kids and staff to camps, and now to include 4-6 scholarships for Northland Pines graduates.
Last year’s event alone netted over $20,000, Bucher said, which all went back into the community. And with a packed pavilion Saturday and numerous local business and corporate sponsors on board, it should be another good year of fundraising for the kids, he said.
It all comes together due to the dozens of volunteers – parents, coaches, teachers, others -- who tackle sundry duties from serving food and drink, to manning the silent auction tables and raffles, to clean-up. Their “pay” consists of the satisfaction of a job well done, and getting to listen to some of the sweetest blues tunes to be heard in the Northwoods.
Picking the music pickers
Opening the musical portion of the day was Blues Summit Band from Wisconsin Rapids, playing a list of new and old tunes incorporating West Coast Swing, Delta, and Chicago styles.
One of the best harp musicians around Lil’ Davy Max and his band took over the central part of the show, playing vintage Chicago blues.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Joe Bucher & the TopRaiders took to the stage to send the audience dancing and clapping well into the evening with more killer blues.
As the Blues Summit Band was finishing up, Bucher explained how he picks the bands for the event.
“We try to stay loyal to the blues and make this a blues related event, because there are a lot of other good music events up here. We like to be the ‘blues event of the summer’ up here in northern Wisconsin.
“I try to pick bands that are really different and even within the same year, within the same evenings, or same afternoon even. I will have three bands that are distinctly different kinds of blues.
“There are all kinds of blues, everything from acoustic, almost what you call gut bucket blues; to more of a contemporary blues; to a rock blues, which is a lot of people today really like. And even a Texas blues sound.
“For example, the band that was just on (Blues Summit Band) would be more of a contemporary Chicago blues style. The guy coming up (Lil’ Davy Max) is a blues harp player, (he) plays a more traditional style what I would call a Memphis style blues.
“And then my band comes up. We are more eclectic in that we are a four-horn section. We do like a Blood Sweat Tears sound in some respects, yet it’s tailored to the blues. So you get a full blues sound with the horns, and you still have that hard guitar, and we feature the vocals. So there are three distinctly different bands.”
Editor’s Note: For those who missed Saturday’s music and BBQ, here’s a reminder that the annual Pig in the Pines: Bacon, BBQ & Bands is set for Friday and Saturday, Aug. 3-4, at the St. Germain Community Park.
