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W.C. Handy Music Festival from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Cover photo: The Bay City Brass Band led a New Orleans-style “strut” parade through downtown Florence.

Memphis has the blues. St. Louis has the blues. But they’d both be green with envy over northern Alabama’s W.C. Handy Music Festival.

The 10-day event, which wrapped up last week, has become one of the largest annual tourist attractions in the state.

Begun in 1982, it honors the musical legacy of Florence, Ala. native William Christopher (W.C.) Handy, the “Father of the Blues” who coined the term when he wrote “Memphis Blues” in 1912.

And, like the blues itself, the festival has bloomed from humble Southern roots into worldwide fame.

“We have about 300 different events in ten different cities and three different counties, all going on simultaneously,” said festival chair Tori Bailey. “We have visitors coming not just from other states but other countries.”

“From all indications, we had some of the largest numbers attending the various events that we ever had,” said Florence Mayor Mickey Haddock.

Indeed, it seemed as though everyone in town picks up an instrument and plays. The venues included public libraries, university auditoriums, downtown bars and a riverfront park.

On the final day, a New Orleans-style “strut” parade was held through downtown Florence, with the Bay City Brass Band and high school bands and dance teams.

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Street Strut from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

Musical styles ranged from Indian classical to a Tina Turner tribute artist.

“There are so many different bands playing, it’s not just one genre,” said Michael David Hall, lead singer of Levon, which performed at McFarland Park on Saturday (and played a countryfied mashup of Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” and R.Kelly’s “Ignition”).

A theme heard repeatedly from the musicians is that Alabamians take a back seat to no one when it comes to music appreciation.

“One of the reasons I come down to Handy Fest is because the people love the music so much,” said Michael “Supe” Granda of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. “Nashville has a whole different vibe about it, where the music is more or less some kind of product. People here just love the music for the sake of the music making them feel good.”

While the musical tradition was planted in Florence, where Handy was born in 1873 in a log cabin, it blossomed just across the Tennessee River in Muscle Shoals.

That is where the “Muscle Shoals Sound” was invented by record producer Rick Hall and his FAME Studio musicians the Swampers, who were famously name-checked in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Hall produced hit singles for artists as diverse as Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Aretha Franklin and the Osmonds. The acclaimed documentary “Muscle Shoals” has shined a national spotlight on his regional sound.

“This festival means a lot to me because W.C. Handy is the father of the blues, so I want to participate as much as I can,” said Hall, who signed copies of his new autobiography at the festival (read the interview with Rick Hall here).

The Swampers, Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the M.G’s) and other big-name headliners helped the W.C. Handy Festival make a big economic impact.

“Restaurants look at this week as one of their largest of the year, and the motel occupancy is in the 88-92 percent range,” said Mayor Haddock. “The immediate effect is very, very significant.”

“It shows that the community can come together and just have a good time. I think it’s awesome,” said Ollie Parham, economic development chair of the Alabama NAACP.

Still, tucked away in the corners, far from the limelight, you could find the soul of the festival: hundreds of artists and audience members carrying out a lifelong love affair with music.

At the “Blues-n-Bread Pudding” concert, for instance, the All-Star Combo played jazz standards such as “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” that drew smiles and a few tears from the mostly senior citizen audience.

And at “Jazz it Up With Trash” at the Muscle Shoals Public Library, blues legend Microwave Dave played guitar and sang to young children while they kept the beat by pounding and shaking old recycled containers.

“Everywhere you go, I don’t care where you go in the world, there are people playing the blues,” he said.