Recent Articles
Los músicos de la Fundación Music Maker llevan por el mundo las raices de la música americana
by Gema Jimenez
Se trata de una organización que lleva 14 años trabajando con el objetivo de preservar las raices de la música americana: el blues, el gospel y el folk. Estos artistas llevan la música en la sangre. Han tocado en la calle y también con los más grandes, como B.B. King. Ahora están en España dentro de su gira europea.
Go to the source to see a video of the Music Maker Blues Revue performing in Spain!
Source: RTVE.es
by Steve Jones Freedom Creek
Mudcat
Music Maker Relief Foundation
http://www.musicmaker.org/
12 tracks
I was driving home one day and Mudcat was on Sirius/XM radio’s BB King’s Bluesville. I was intrigued by his vocals and made a mental note to find out more about him. Our next Crossroads Blues Society meeting was the next day, and one of the newly arrived CDs was this one so destiny, déjà vu or whatever it was forced me to volunteer to review this CD. I’m very glad I did.
Danny “Mudcat” Dudeck is a mainstay on the live Atlanta music scene. His and the band’s blend of Piedmont blues, gospel, bawdy humor and just great musicianship make for quite the fun listen. This, his ninth release, features Danny with three buddies recorded (as Tim Duffy notes on the CD) “one fine summer morning in the hills of Carolina.” Dave Roth on standup bass, Eskil Wetterqvist on drums and Lil’ Joe Burton on trombone along with Dudeck serve up a creative mix of traditional and original acoustic songs. Tim Duffy at MMRF has put together a fine little CD here with Mudcat and his buddies that every fan of acoustic blues needs to hear.
The title track starts off the CD. Mudcat’s busking style and slide work get the listener engrossed at the onset and take them for an enjoyable ride. Burto’s trombone adds a unique and very cool punctuation to the songs. He opens the next song “San Antone” with a burst and then Dudeck gets into a lilting melody. Dudeck wails in the chorus, “Somehow how tequila proceeded before my eyes open, and my mind blown again”, giving us an interesting visual image. He continues on the heavy drinking them even more in the next cut, “Empty Room Blues”, were he grunts and groans over an impressive guitar picking solo. In “I Want to Know” an uncredited gospel group with piano backs up Dudeck. He and the singers give a gut wrenching performance; Burton wails on his solo, too.
They go into some old fashioned bawdy humor with double entendres, unfinished lines and then obvious rhyming lines (usually quite dirty). “Big Bamboo” sings about how the plant pleases “one and all” in a variety of double entendres. In “Red Light” they get even more down and dirty with their unfinished thoughts. “Peter Rumpkin” continues in that vein a few tracks later. “Rattlesnake” again uses the double entendre. These cuts are both funny and musically well done.
A cool cover of James Brown’s “Try Me” gets respectfully done acoustically with some harmonies by the band members adding to Mudcat’s vocals. Another strong trombone solo further sells this one. “I Want to Know” and “Keep On the Sunny Side” are two other covers given a good treatment.
I thoroughly enjoyed this album. Mudcat’s vocals are gritty and strong, his slide work and guitar picking is great and his band is equally up to the task of delivering strong perfromances. Roth and Wetterqvist are solid backbones to this effort and Lil’s Joe adds so much with his trombone work. These guys would be a blast to see live but until you can do that I recommend listening to this album!
Source: Crossroads Blues Society
by Alana Harper, PRI's Studio 360 This story originally aired on PRI’s Studio 360. For more, listen to the audio.
A trio of young African-American musicians are re-inventing banjo music for a new generation.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops have been getting a lot of attention for being young African-American musicians embracing and re-inventing old-timey Americana. The string band has just released an album called “Genuine Negro Jig.” They’ve also performed with blues legend Taj Mahal, and appeared in a Denzel Washington movie.
This spring, the Chocolate Drops joined other creators and fans of their style of music at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, in the mountains of North Carolina. The gathering, held at Appalachian State University, saw intellectuals and banjo enthusiasts celebrating the legacy of the banjo and African American culture.
The members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops—Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson—met at the first Black Banjo gathering in 2005. According to the band’s website, the three initially got together as a tribute to Joe Thompson, a black fiddler in his 80s with a short bowing style inherited from generations of family musicians. Thompson inspired Giddens’s playing style, which she calls “beating the banjo to death.”
“We started out playing for square dances, country dances ... you gotta get their attention and make them want to move,” said Giddens.
The banjo, which has its roots in Africa, has long been associated with music styles dominated by whites. This began in the 1940s and 50s, when whites in blackface used the banjo in their minstrel acts. Through time, the music grew beyond the minstrel shows—due in part to to virtuosos like Earl Scruggs—and became the form commonly seen today.
The organizers of the Black Banjo Gathering want to educate both blacks and whites about where the instrument and the musical tradition originated. Groups like the Carolina Chocolate Drops have reclaimed the banjo, but for them, it’s all about the music.
PRI’s Peabody Award-winning “Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen” from WNYC is public radio’s smart and surprising guide to what’s happening in pop culture and the arts. Each week, Kurt Andersen introduces you to the people who are creating and shaping our culture. Life is busy—so let “Studio 360” steer you to the must-see movie this weekend, the next book for your nightstand, or the song that will change your life.
Source: Public Radio International
by Andrew Dansby Two years ago the Carolina Chocolate Drops came through town to play the International Festival. At the time the string band — multi-instrumentalists Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson — drew as much attention for the fact that its three members were black as it did for the vibrant versions of old string-band songs that made up its first album, Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind. Most stories included explanation of an African-American acoustic music tradition that was largely based around the banjo.
Having established itself, the band seems able now to talk more about music than race. The new Genuine Negro Jig features the trio threading new original material and more contemporary fare (covers of songs by Tom Waits and Blu Cantrell) through some traditional tunes.
Uniting it all is the band’s curiosity and interest in the rudiments of song (old or new), as well as its formidable chops. With acoustic instruments and accoutrements such as bones, jugs and kazoos they’ve honored the songster traditions of stylistic diversity and cross-generational interpretation. Flemons talked about the band’s approach to making music.
Q: For an old song, Trouble in Your Mind seems to fit the times. I guess that’s the thing about bad times songs ...
A:That’s the thing about a lot of these songs, they have universal messages. They can cover great lengths of time, just because of the themes. Bad times always end up coming back at some point. But good times roll, too.
Q:Your Baby Ain’t Sweet Like Mine made me wonder what happened to that genre of baked-goods-as-metaphor-for-sex songs?
A:Y’know, I don’t really know what it is, it also appears a little in Cornbread and Butterbeans, where sex in the song is really taken very lightheartedly. It’s kind of like the throw-off to the side instead of being the full focus, which tends to be the case in a lot of modern songs, where it’s the big focus.
Q:You guys seem to unravel a lot of time-honored preconceptions about old music. But do you feel region has more to do with older music forms than race?
A:Oh absolutely. But that’s a thought people don’t particularly spend much time with. It’s something that once I went to the South, being from Arizona, I really understood what it was about. There are vastly different sounds and accents and everything based on the part of a state, from one county to another. The way people talk and eat, it’s different, and that sort of stuff comes across in the music, too.
Q:Slapping legs, playing bones, blowing on jugs: Your record is a reminder you don’t need a $2,000 guitar and an expensive amp to make music.
A:No, sometimes you just need to look around your kitchen.
Q: So what exactly does playing bones require of you?
A:(Laughs.) That’s the million-dollar question. It’s such a simple instrument but it’s very hard to pinpoint down. You see European influences from it, African influences from it. The castanets have the same function. Sometimes you look beyond the physical instrument and find it’s more about the function.
Q:Do you know from what creature your bones came?
A:The ones I play came from a cow.
Q: Is it difficult to acquire such an instrument?
A: No, it’s pretty easy. One fellow told me, “To do bones, all you gotta do is throw them on the roof and they’ll bleach themselves.” That’s what bones will do if you leave them out in the world. Sometimes I’ll show people how to play them and they’ll drop them and say, “Oh no!” I tell them not to worry. It’s just bones.
Q: So are you a pack rat?
A: Oh yeah. (Laughs.) I got a ton of books and everything else, music and things, laying around all over the place. ... And it’s not just recordings. We’re starting to delve into sheet-music songs. Genuine Negro Jig is something Rhiannon got from a sheet of paper and adapted based on that sheet. There’s a whole new aspect of music out there that hasn’t been researched as much as it could be. With more people getting interested in it, hopefully more will be uncovered. I’m hoping in a few years we’ll see people younger than us playing this music. Hopefully they’ll run us over.
Q:It’s curious who gets lost and who doesn’t. Bessie Smith gets lovingly anthologized, and the Spivey Sisters, who came from this area, have barely any digital presence today.
A:Yeah, there are so many like that. I recently got into another singer from Texas that I found at random, Maggie Jones. The record didn’t have any sort of title, it just said “Maggie Jones.” My granddad is from Pinewood, Texas, so there’s a personal thing for me with what I grew up with. Some of these Texas artists happened to be the the first stuff I was drawn to. My granddad talks just like Leadbelly, he’s a country creature. He’s why I got into so many East Texas people, which is my favorite genre of songster. Texas’ history is so vibrant. It depends who you talk to, Texas is the most well-known unknown secret in American music.
Source: Houston Chronicle
The Pepsi Refresh Project, a groundbreaking effort that funds ideas, big and small, that can refresh the world, announced that the Sustaining Roots Music Community Project (SOOTS) received the most votes in May and is on track to be collectively awarded a $5,000 grant to organize a Benefit Blues Revue concert, and to help introduce younger generations to the community’s traditional music. In 2010, Pepsi is awarding more than $20 million to ideas that will move the world forward. Anyone can submit an idea at http://www.RefreshEverything.com and each month the public decides who wins.
Americans voted for over 1,000 ideas from May 1 through May 31. With the May ideas’ votes tallied, Pepsi is working with partners at Global Giving and GOOD to ensure that each idea qualifies to receive funding. Once approved, each idea will have the opportunity to be put into action.
“The Sustaining Roots Music Community Project is special because it shows young people taking an interest not just in learning about our community’s musical history, but also in preserving that history for future generations,” said Julie Trahin, Pepsi Bottling Ventures. “We look forward to the concert SOOTS will be putting on to benefit the Music Maker Relief Foundation as part of its Pepsi Refresh grant.”
Voters to http://www.refresheverything.com/soots agreed that the idea from SOOTS was a compelling one. SOOTS has experience in this area, having orgnaized four benefit concerts, raised $9,000 and united diverse communities through song and dance since its inception in 2006. The twofold goal of supporting aging musicians and engaging younger audiences promises to please everyone in the community. SOOTS will begin by organizing a Benefit Blues Revue featuring Piedmont Blues musicians, the proceeds of which will benefit the Music Maker Relief Foundation. The concert will be professionally filmed and recorded to preserve the local arts for future generations.
The Pepsi Refresh Project is an evolution of the Refresh Everything initiative Pepsi launched in 2009, which showed the brand as a catalyst for optimism. In 2010, Pepsi is funding ideas that will move the world forward in six categories: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education. The Pepsi Refresh Project will feature significant social engagement around people and the power of ideas.
To implement the project, Pepsi has partnered with three organizations dedicated to making a positive difference in the world: GOOD, a leading platform for thought and action revolving around pushing the world forward; Global Giving, an online marketplace that connects people who have community and world-changing ideas with people who can support them; and Do Something, the largest non-profit teen charity.
“The SOOTS Community Project achieves two important goals: first, to assist elderly Southern blues artists, and second, to introduce young people to this traditional musical genre,” said Rebecca Rigal, Pepsi Refresh Project Arts & Culture Ambassador. “Through a filmed and recorded concert, among other activities, SOOTS will achieve both of its goals.”
The Pepsi Refresh Project can be found at http://www.RefreshEverything.com or find more information on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/refresheverything and Twitter, @Pepsi or #pepsirefresh.
Source: Raleigh Downtowner Magazine
by Randy Hamilton, Durham Photography Examiner Opinions vary about what constitutes a good photographic portrait: Color or black and white? Studio or in situ? Neutral or natural background? Full or three-quarter view? Etc., etc. Regardless of such factors, most will readily agree that the best portraits reveal some essence of the subject. Jimmy Williams’s series, “Music Makers,” now on display at the Durham Art Guild, does exactly that.
The music makers of the title are those who have helped define the grassroots of Southern music, especially the blues. These all-but-forgotten pioneers are supported by the Music Makers Relief Foundation of Hillsborough, dedicated to their financial support and to the preservation of their musical legacy. When Williams discovered the organization and its charges, he set out to document them in portraiture, starting with those residing in North Carolina.
These pictures at once reveal the culture from which they emerged and in which they continue to live and perform, while showing the color of their music and the dignity with which most still struggle for subsistence. Yet as blue as we might assume their lives to be, all of them are anything but cheerless.
The majority of these portraits are in color, but the featured portrait, of Hillsborough native and Durham resident John Dee Holeman, is in black and white, in tones as rich as any of the others. And that is saying something. Each one seems a perfectly made composition, from the view of the subject to just the right setting for each to the sharp clarity of every image. One struggles to find anything in the entire exhibit that might be judged a flaw.
Even those less familiar with this music will recognize the names of at least some of Williams’s the subjects, including Skeeter Brandon and Cool John Ferguson, whom Taj Mahal once called “one of the five greatest guitarists in the world.”
“Music Makers” is on display through June 27th at the Durham Art Guild. You can see some (but not all) of the exhibit photographs, and many other works, on Jimmy Williams’s web site. Williams also presents a slideshow of the series, which he narrates himself, and his web site has a section with samples of the music of some of his subjects. You can learn more about the musicians and the Music Maker project, and you can purchase music, at musicmaker.org.
And while you’re at the Durham Art Guild, be sure to take a moment to view the work of Durham Public School Teacher Artists, which includes several photographs.
Source: Raleigh Examiner
by Brenda Owen Download original story from the Pontotoc Progress LeeGatesPontotocNews.pdf
From the farms of 1950s Pontotoc County, Mississippi to the Milwaukee blues scene of the 21st Century, Lee Gates has traveled a road that has taken him around the world. Now hailed as one of Milwaukee’s pre-eminent blues musicians, Lee was born December 20, 1937 in Pontotoc. “I grew up in Pontotoc County,” he said recently in a phone interview from his home in Milwaukee. “I lived out between Pontotoc and Ecru.” His parents Brice and Inez Gates were both guitarists, and he remembers learning to “play guitar in Oxford, Mississippi. I used to work down on Brown’s Farm in Oxford with my daddy. I was about nine years old and I knew that’s what I wanted.” His musically gifted parents encouraged his dreams. When he was 14, his mother bought him an electric guitar, no small purchase in those lean days. But he listened and learned. He listened to BB King, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters on the radio and picked up a tip here and there from other blues players, especially his parents, both of whom played blues and country blues
In 1959, the 22-year-old Lee migrated to Milwaukee where he found work performing with the house band at Wilson’s Club at 10th and Center Streets, a gig he held for 15 years while he worked at a steel mill during the day. “Sometimes I use to get home at 5 o’clock in the morning and go to work without any sleep,” Lee recalled. In addition to Milwaukee, he’s played all throughout the United States, from California to Kansas to Alabama, and even in Europe. The decades of struggle finally paid dividends in October 2003 when he recorded his first CD. Tim Duffy, president of Music Makers Relief Foundation in Hillsborough, North Carolina, related the story on the album cover notes: “Lee called me up and announced that he was coming to Hillsborough. I asked him what for and Lee replied, ‘To make a CD.’ I asked Lee if he wouldn’t mind going down to Alabama to record. Two days later, Lee caught a Greyhound to Huntsville, he missed a layover in Nashville and got in early the next morning and went straight to the studio with Ardie Dean. Lee proclaimed the record done in three hours and was soon on a bus heading back home. One must rejoice in the ‘happening’ of this CD, especially the glorious tone of Lee’s guitar. After performing for 52 years I have a feeling that Lee is just beginning his recording career.”
Indeed, following Lee’s first CD, Lee Gates and the Alabama Cotton Kings, his has recorded two other albums with Music Maker, Black Lucy’s Deuce and, most recently, Touring with Lucy, released in September 2009. “Black Lucy — that’s my guitar,” Lee explained. Lee’s family includes a sister still living in Pontotoc, a brother in New Albany and more family in the Milwaukee area including two daughters, a grandchild and his mother, but it is certainly Lucy who has been his most constant companion through the years. The instrument is almost an extension of his own body, giving voice to the music he hears in his mind so he can share it with others.
Music critic Lou Novacheck said of Lee in a recent blog: “Lee Gates has Mississippi Mud running through his veins. He also has blues genes, since he’s a first cousin to Albert Collins (a legendary Texas blues musician). If Lee isn’t a true-blue, Mississippi Delta bluesman, then nobody can carry that moniker. But Lee isn’t just a bluesman. He’s also a Luther Allison-style blues rocker from Pontotoc, Mississippi. Lee hasn’t had any of the breaks that many other less-skilled blues-rockers have had in spite of his blazing guitar work and good writing skills. He’s had several brushes with greatness, coming close to the golden ring, but never quite reaching it. But he’s most certainly not lacking the talent to still reach it. Maybe this time around.”
Whether or not he reaches worldwide fame, Lee said he will play his music and be true to himself and his roots. “I don’t try to play like anyone else, I create my own thing,” Lee said. Pontotoc County native making mark on Milwaukee blues scene Lee Gates traces his roots and his music back to Pontotoc County.
Source: The Pontotoc Progress
by Matthew Martin Jerry “Boogie” McCain answered the phone with his usual, trademark response to “Hello.” He’s got arthritis, bursitis and a whole litany of ailments. The legendary blues harmonica player will soon have the best medicine for his condition — a payday.
Music Reports is attempting to collect Boogie’s discography to put on Microsoft’s new music service. McCain received notification of this via mail Tuesday, and he mailed it back Wednesday.
“I already mailed it today,” McCain said. “I don’t want to be late. I want everything to be on time, except dying.”
For one of the first times in his career, McCain is handling everything himself — no lawyers, no managers, no producers.
“Boogie’s doing all this on his own, no lawyers and no vultures,” McCain said.
The result of doing it all by himself is McBlues Music, McCain’s record/publishing company he runs. He currently has an account on CD Baby online, which is handled by Terry Jennings, owner of Little Faces Doll Shop. The next thing on his calendar is recording a new album. The record will be recorded in Huntsville by co-producer Artie Dean. But before he can do that he must follow his doctor’s orders and rest his vocal cords after a polyp was removed. For the rest of the month, he can’t sing or play his harmonica. There was two weeks where he was not to talk, but that lasted about seven or so days, he joked. Still, McCain is happy it is not worse. At least he still will be around to sing, dance and most importantly, play his mouth harp.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t throat cancer,” McCain said.
For years, bluesmen like McCain were cheated out of their royalties by record labels and managers who got rich off the records they recorded. Those “vultures” preyed on McCain and other bluesmen, but he said he is done with that.
“If I had known how the music business would’ve turned out, I would have been a preacher,” McCain joked. “That way I would have gotten paid every Sunday.”
After 60 years of baring his soul on stage and in the studio, McCain might finally get his due — and he couldn’t be more excited. For those who have met him, or seen him perform, you understand where McCain got his nickname. With some stateside recognition coming his way, Boogie finally has a reason to jump up and down and dance and play like a man possessed.
Source: The Gadsden Times
Harvey Pekar, author of American Splendor, and Gary Dumm, comic artist who has worked with Pekar since 1976, have written and drawn comics for NC based nonprofit, Music Maker Relief Foundation, since 2003. Now, these comics will be featured in a 2010 calendar that MMRF produced in order to raise funds for their programs that support elderly Southern musicians who are enduring the most desperate of times.
“We’re proud to be part of the Music Maker family,” Dumm said. “Even if you can’t play a lick of music, knowing that you’ve helped musicians who otherwise might have been silenced, to play and sing their songs may be the sweetest sounding and best music of all.”
Each month features a different comic that highlights the unique talents and fascinating personalities of Music Maker recipient musicians. Whether it be a comic about the late Willa Mae Buckner’s snake collections and carnival shows or a comic about Drink Small’s, the Blues Doctor’s, ability to cure “the restless foot syndrome,” the calendar will give you a glimpse into the lives of these musicians and the work of the foundation.
“This fine calendar is well worth the donation to Music Maker Relief Foundation,” Pekar said.
In addition to the 12 comics, the calendar chronicles the birthdays of many legendary musicians the foundation has helped throughout the years, including African American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the late Cootie Stark and Etta Baker.
“I’m grateful that Harvey Pekar and Gary Dumm have shared their amazing artistry with us,” Tim Duffy, MMRF president, said. “Their support through creativity will help us raise funds during this tough time.”
The calendar is part of the organization’s holiday gift giving program. Please visit gift.musicmaker.org for more information.
Source: the Comic Book Bin
by Richard Marcus Throughout the month of November other Blogcritics writers and myself have been reviewing and talking about Blues music. Something that’s become clear from writing some of these articles, and from reading them, is the universal appeal of the Blues. Guitar players from Finland and record labels in Germany only confirms the fact, everybody does indeed get the Blues. But no matter how far flung the Blues has become; there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind where its roots lie. When Thomas Ruf of Ruf records in Germany wanted to give some of his young European Blues musicians a deeper understanding of the music they played, he took them to Mississippi and Memphis to record. They hung out and played for hours a day with the people who have lived and breathed the music and the life circumstances that created it. Ruf understood that it’s one thing for these young people to play the music on a daily basis, but another altogether to experience it. In Europe they lacked the resource that would enable this, the people who’ve been living, breathing, performing, and creating the Blues for the past few generations.
The roots of Blues music run deep in the Southern United States, and are closely intermingled with the social history of that region. To play the Blues without an awareness of the people and the places it came from is to rob it of the very vitality that has kept it vibrant and alive long after its originators have passed on. When Thomas Ruf took his musicians to record Pilgrimage: Mississippi To Memphis they were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface is floating hundreds if not thousands of musicians who contributed in one way or another to a little piece of the story of the Blues. These men and women, who should be recognized for their contributions to the creation and development of American culture, have been living their lives in obscurity and, in most cases, poverty. Unfortunately, many still are. But because of the efforts of one couple, a very exiting change has taken place over the last fifteen years.
The way Tim Duffy tells the story of the Music Maker Relief Foundation it sounds like such an obvious thing to do. It makes you wonder why no one thought of it earlier. In 1990 he had met Guitar Gabriel, and they began playing together. Through Gabriel Tim began to get to know other older musicians and learned about the harsh realities of their lives. Initially he tried to organize gigs and recording deals for these musicians in order to help them keep body and soul together. After three years of this he realized that without help he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He had made some rough field recordings of many of the performers and in the end they were what started the ball rolling.
Tim had sent out a general plea for help to people who had been friends of his late father, and one of the first to respond was Mark Levinson a pioneer in the world of commercial stereo equipment. He was the one who got the ball rolling for the Music Maker Foundation by promoting an initial compilation disc through his showroom. A chance meeting between Mark and Eric Clapton resulted in Eric’s interest in the project and the initial bump that the project needed to get publicity and a small distribution deal with Tower Records. They were now able to start generating some funds and booking shows for the artists. It was only the beginning.
Now seventeen years since his fateful meeting with Guitar Gabriel (who ironically died just as the foundation began to bear fruit) The Music Maker Relief Foundation has come quite a distance. With an Advisory board that includes Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown, Sue Foley, and B.B. King, and Taj Mahal serving on the Board of Directors, public awareness is growing, which assures the continued growth and expansion of the programming offered by the organization. Not only are they now able to provide grants for individuals in need of financial assistance, they are able to produce records, arrange gigs for individual artists, and promote international tours under the Music Maker banner. Slowly but surely they are not only bringing the people who made the music out of obscurity, but generating interest in some of the lesser known styles of the music as well.
There is always the danger that when some performers die that a style or type of music could vanish with them forever. Producing groups like the Carolina Chocolate Drops, three young Black musicians who play the Country Blues of the Carolinas, ensures that music is prevented from becoming either only a memory or a dusty museum piece. The Music Maker Relief Foundation is not just about recognizing the achievements of those who came before, or even just preserving their music like fossils in amber. Now that they have successfully started their grant program to artists in need, their next step is to ensure the music’s continued vitality and bring it to new audiences everywhere.
The Chocolate drops are one step in that direction, but Tim Duffy envisions a day when the foundation has its own facilities for recording, performing, and celebrating the people who create the music. He’s well aware of how fickle fad and fashion can be, so he knows it will take a permanent effort beyond what he and his wife Denise are capable of as individuals to maintain what has been started. Not only is the music that the foundation strives to preserve important, the work of the foundation itself must be preserved beyond this one generation for it to be successful. Initially it may have been founded with the humanitarian goal of caring for those who pioneered the Blues, but it has outgrown that impulse. Now it is fast becoming a means of preserving an important aspect of the United States’ cultural heritage.
With the permanent location of Tim’s realized it will be possible for the music and the people who perform it to have the means to always be a part of the nation’s awareness. Nevermore will they become out of sight and out of mind or risk being relegated to the scrap heap of the forgotten. If you have even the barest of interest in the Blues and the people who were responsible for keeping it alive over the years, in all its glorious shapes and sizes, then you may want to consider a way in which you can support the efforts of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. They are one of the best and brightest hopes for keeping the Blues alive today.
Source: blogcritics
Next Page
