Recent Articles
John Ellis, fresh sod and other early Thursday impressions from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 1, 2008
by Keith Spera
In the Southern Comfort Blues, the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a North Carolina organization dedicated to sustaining elderly blues musicians, showcased a trio of artists. Piedmont acoustic guitarist Boo Hanks just turned 80. He didn't play his first professional gig until age 79; he worked most of his life as a farmer. "He says he likes this better than driving a tractor," noted his guitarist. (more)
Carolina Chocolate Drops thrill Blues Tent from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 1, 2008
by Keith Spera
A couple thousand people left the Blues Tent newly smitten by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They are revivalists to a degree, revisiting rural African-American folk songs from as far back as the 19th century. Don Flemons, one young member of the trio, even dressed the part in suspenders and a long-sleeve work shirt buttoned to the neck. (more)
Albert White represents the Music Makers Foundation at the Congressional Blues Festival
Jonas Beals
Next Wednesday, the Kennedy Center will host a music festival that could happen only in Washington. The fifth annual Congressional Blues Festival provides a chance to see politicos and congressmen get down to blues superstars including Robert Cray and Elvin Bishop, as well as less-known legends such as Macavine Hayes, Captain Luke and Big Ron Hunter.
The event is a celebration of America's roots-music heritage, and an opportunity to recognize the efforts of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a Hillsboro, N.C., nonprofit that helps forgotten Southern music pioneers gain recognition and pay their bills.
Albert White is one such musician. He grew up in Atlanta playing guitar with his uncle, Piano Red. He later performed live or on record with Clarence Carter, Ben E. King and Hank Ballard. He never became a star, but his guitar was an important fixture in popular regional blues and R&B. (more)
Old Roots, New Branches
by Rick Cornell
A long weekend in late April brought Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Del McCoury, Elvis Costello and over 100 other bands to Wilkesboro this year, where they shared the grounds of a community college with beloved patriarch Doc Watson. For the last 19 years, thousands of fans have gathered at Merlefest, taking in four days of roots music 23 miles down U.S. 421 from Watson's birthplace of Deep Gap.
Elsewhere, the fall and spring editions of the Shakori Hills festivals—twin mini-Merlefests in Chatham County, if you will—hosted a similar variety of roots-leaning acts. As usual, bluegrass festivals remained widespread in the state, publicity occasionally consisting of a few cardboard signs posted a couple weeks in advance. Somehow, fans of high and lonesome still find them. And in Carrboro, the fourth annual American Roots Series at the ArtsCenter again hit every corner of the sprawling Americana tent, from folk and swing to honky-tonk and sacred steel. (more)
Feeling the Blues in South Dakota
by Abby Buehler
As he closed his eyes, a deep, soulful moan escaped his pursed lips, reverberating through the dimly lit bar. He moved his right hand over the six strings of his acoustic guitar, letting another chord out into the anticipating crowd.
As he shook his head and looked down, one wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking of his childhood? Those early years of his life spent on the street corners with his father, playing for money. Or was he thinking about where his next dollar was coming from?
“Joy.” That was the one word that summed up Alvin “Little Pink” Anderson’s emotions on that stage. (more)
The Carolina Chocolate Drops: On Their Way
by Larry Benicewicz, from Blues Art Journal
Well, there’s an old expression: what goes ‘round comes around. But who could imagine that string band street music from the Roaring 20s could ever be resurrected and moreover be warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by a whole new audience of listeners? After all this is the technological age, wherein tunes born of slick, sophisticated, computer enhanced engineering are downloaded (some say stolen) in a flash to personal iPods. How can, you say, instrumentation of such a primitive origin - washtub basses, earthenware jugs, kazoos, washboards, fiddles, banjos, and resonating, steel guitars ever have a chance to speak to or appeal to such a zoned out, plugged-in generation? But then who can gainsay the overnight success of the upstart Carolina Chocolate Drops, who like a breath of fresh air, gain converts each day to their Gospel of real, authentic Piedmont blues, played in their inimitable manner with nary a hint of irony.(more)
The Sacred & The Profane: The Blind Boys of Alabama and Adolphus Bell meet in the middle at the Trustees Theater
by Jim Reed, from Connect Savannah
Most folks who were either raised in the South —or who have taken it upon themselves to learn a bit about the popular music traditions which have emanated from this region over the past century or so— cannot help but have at least a cursory knowledge of both traditional rhythm and blues and black gospel.
However, despite ample and undeniable evidence which demonstrates that these two seemingly incongruous genres are in fact inextricably linked (“bound to be bound” to borrow a phrase from a songwriter friend of mine), there still exists no small amount of confusion over the roots of not only rural, acoustic “country” blues and its cousin, electric “city” blues, but of their flashy grandchild: rock and roll.
Adolphus Bell knows this heritage better than most.(more)
Bull City Blues
by Jamie Williams, from The Daily Tarheel
Tim Duffy, founder of Durham's Music Maker Relief Foundation, said Durham has a legitimate right to be called "home of the blues."
"People think that the blues came out of Mississippi, but Durham has just as much of a claim as anyone.
"Blind Boy Fuller is arguably the biggest blues star of all time and he came right out of Durham." (more)
Adolphus Bell in Turkey
from the Turkish Daily News
The 18th Efs Pilsend Blues Festival, which aims to reach smaller cities in Turkey, comes to an end after a month. The jazz artists John Primer, Adolphus Bell and Bernard Allison enjoyed and admired the big audiences. (more)
Skeeter Brandon: Natural blue
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Calvin Thomas Brandon has gracefully lifted himself above hardship his whole life, and that feeling ends up in his throat when he sings the blues. As one of 16 children on a farm near Roxboro, he looked forward to singing when his family went to church. They lived in the house Brandon's father, a carpenter while in the military, built, eating a lot of fatback and pinto beans and surviving from what they made growing tobacco.(more)
Music Review: Various Music Maker Relief Foundation Performers Blues Sweet Blues
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We live in horribly cynical times that make you second-guess everybody's intentions. What are they getting out of it, has become the typical response to altruistic behaviour, as if nobody ever does anything any more because it makes them feel good to help others. Unfortunately it's an attitude that's understandable, and one I freely admit to sharing, due to the barrage of press releases we are subject too, outlining just how wonderful some star is because of their gift to some cause or other.(more)
James Davis Silent Strings
James was born on August 31, 1931, in Houston County, Georgia, to Ulysses and Bessie Davis. James was preceded in death by two sisters, Elvia Watkins and Thelma Lester. He was educated at Davis Chapel Elementary School. He was formerly employed at Tolleson Lumber Company.
He was also a renowned musician, known by many as the "Drum Beat Man" and inducted into the Music Hall of Fame and highlighted in The Living Blues (The Magazine of the African American Blues). Many of James' albums and CDs will live in our hearts "forever." He was accompanied most of these musical years by the following drummers: Mr. Eddie Releford, Mr. Jimmy Thomas and Mr. Pumpkin Whitfield. He also had a lead Drummer, Mr. Verlon Gilbert. (more)
Hot Ticket
Like barbershop quartets, fiddle-and-banjo bands are usually thought of as the province of white musicians. But African Americans were heavily involved in the genesis of both traditions.(more)
John Dee Holeman and The Waifs Band
North Carolina-based bluesman John Dee Holeman gained well-deserved exposure earlier this year when he sat in with Kenny Wayne Shepherd for his on-the-road CD/DVD. One of the foremost exponents of the Piedmont style of blues, Holeman learned from the musical descendants of Blind Boy Fuller.(more)
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Bringing It Forth
Some musical traditions are lucky enough to stay strong and healthy over the years, carried on by generation after generation of singers and instrumentalists while being comprehensively recorded by folklorists and fans. Others, sadly, quietly disappear as the elders pass on and no one takes their place. Then there are those that largely slip from the public consciousness but persist in the cultural background through the playing of a few dedicated musicians until the moment is right for a rebirth. African-American string-band music falls in the latter category, and something of a revival is currently being launched by a hot young trio from the Piedmont region of North Carolina called the Carolina Chocolate Drops.(more)
Carolina Chocolate Drops to Play at NEA Heritage Fellowship Award Ceremony with Joe Thompson
On September 20, 2007, the Carolina Chocolate Drops will take the stage at the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship award ceremony with the band's mentor and fellowship recipient Joe Thompson. The NEA Heritage Fellowship is the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts.(more)
Rolling Stone
Modern Jug-Band Music. Carolina Chocolate Drops are three young black musicians revisiting, with a joyful vengeance, black strong-band and jug-band music of the Twenties and Thirties - the dirt-floor dance electricity of Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon's Jug Stompers.(more)
Argentina Press
Slaves. Fields. Cotton. Work songs. The American South. The blues are part of this history, fruit of this context. Just like Adolphus Bell. Black, from a poor cotton picking family, "with the soul of blues" as he says, he is the band-he dominates the guitar, drums, and harmonica. At his side, Pura Fe. Shy, she is a guitarist, composer, poet, artist, and descendent of the Tuscanora tribe. Further on, Miguel Botafogo. His beard is as long as his path that began 17 years ago with Pappo's Blues. The three of them, while they count the hours for the shows on Friday the 15th and Saturday the 16th in the N/D Ateneo, are in a back room of Channel 7 waiting for the order to jump onstage on "Manana Vemos", the program conducted by Mex Urtirizberea and Carla Czudnowsky. (more)
Can Rock Save the World?
When America's most popular songwriter penned “Hard Times Come Again No More,” little did he know how hard his own times would become. When he died a decade later from a fever-induced fall, Stephen Foster had only 38 cents in his pocket.(more)
Heaven can Waif
Tim Duffy is backstage at one of John Dee Holeman's concerts, showing him a copy of his new album. And he's trying to jog the septuagenarian bluesman's memory about the musicians who accompanied him on the record.
"Remember them?" Duffy asks, pointing at the cover. "They had kinda English-sounding accents? Band from Australia with two girls?"(more)
Searching for the Blues, Missing Link in Lumberton
My mission was to accompany as scribe Guy Fay, talent scout and newly christened cinematographer for DixieFrog records of France, in his quest to record on video for a future documentary American roots music; particularly that type which establishes a link between Native American music with that of our African-American forebears.(more)
Review of, "Music Makers: Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America"
Music Makers is an elegant hardback with a 22-track CD and it was printed as a benefit project for the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF) with its headquarters in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Editor Timothy Duffy is a co-founder of MMRF. Bear with me a moment while I gave a little background on the MMRF.(more)
added 6/01/07The Congressional Blues Festival
The roots of modern American music lie in the blues. The music has rich history, but sadly some of its most eminent practitioners have been forgotten and are struggling just to get by. The Music Maker Relief Foundation was formed to help provide grants to struggling musicians.(more)
added 6/01/07Where the Blues and Business Casual Collide
There have been many great performers in Music Land, for example Bono, Freddie Mercury, and Madonna, just to name a few. There are also many folks who go out of their way to exude cool via ironic t-shirts purchased at Urban Outfitters and meticulously unkempt hair. It’s one thing to dance with a pretty girl in the audience, but how many rock stars put a guitar in her hands and then proceed to wrap their arms around her and play it? Likewise, there is no way the boys from Arctic Monkeys could rock a gold lamet or candy apple red suit and pull it off. At last night’s Congressional Blues Festival, a benefit concert for the Music Maker Relief Foundation held at the Mellon Auditorium, we saw the real deal. Bono and indie scenesters alike should take lessons in showmanship and cool from the cats that were on stage.(more)
added 6/01/07The Reliable Source
Festivities: Backstage VIP room at the Congressional Blues Festival, a four-hour concert at the Commerce Department's Mellon Auditorium, hosted by Dixie congressmen Wednesday night (more)
added 6/01/07K Street Files
Blues for Congress. At least one organization doesn't have the blues over tighter ethics requirements. The Congressional Blues Festival, which helps raise money and awareness for the Music Maker Relief Foundation, is planning on plenty of Members and staff to turn out for its fourth annual concert tonight.(more)
added 6/01/07From the Stacks: What Landed in Our Library This Week
The latest issue of the MMRF's newsletter, Music Maker Rag, tells the story behind the organization's inception, when Tim and Denise Duffy came across ... (more)
added 4/2/07Interview with Tim Duffy
Founder of Music Maker, Tim Duffy sits down with James Calemine to talk about Music Maker. (more)
Boo's Blues
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It's becoming increasingly difficult to talk with 78-year-old James "Boo" Hanks, says Carroll Henderson-Brown, his niece and next door neighbor.
Carolina Chocolate Drops challenge musical stereotypes
by Susan Budig | Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, 11/8/2006
The Carolina Chocolate Drops (CCDs) might not carry the same clout - they aren't bringing something new into America's musical vocabulary. But, they are reviving a lost art and pulling a cultural epoch into modern times. In doing so, the CCDs, one of only a handful of Black string bands, are making history.
The Music Maker Relief Foundation: Helping Restore The Blues
by Richard Marcus | desicritics.org, November 28, 2006
The way Tim Duffy tells the story of the Music Maker Relief Foundation it sounds like such an obvious thing to do 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.
