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Forgotten Southern Masters

184.12.240.254

Posted on July 18, 2014 at 10:19:33
LWR
Audiophile

Posts: 66808
Location: The woods
Joined: August 12, 2003

“Great artists who changed the world should not be hidden by their poverty,” says Tim Duffy, who for the past twenty years has been working to ensure that an older generation of blues musicians—who may be short on funds but certainly not on talent—aren’t simply forgotten and left to scrape by in obscurity. Along with his wife, Denise, Duffy is the founder of the Hillsborough, North Carolina–based Music Maker Relief Foundation, which since its start in 1994 has assisted hundreds of pioneering musicians with everything from scheduling tours and securing studio time to paying rent and medical bills.
In celebration of its twentieth anniversary, the foundation has just launched an exhibition that pays tribute to those artists. Like Ironing Board Sam, who once had a weekly gig on Night Train in the 1960s and toured throughout the South before falling on hard times in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Or Rufus McKenzie, who learned the blues while singing to his mule in the cotton fields of Perry, Georgia. And though they may not be household names today, they were integral in helping to shape modern music. “Blues was born in the poor, working communities, and the whole world of popular music is based on it,” Duffy says. “Follow it back and you’ll find yourself firmly planted in the South.”
The exhibit, which includes photographs, paintings, instruments, and multimedia clips, will be housed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through August 29 before it heads to the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, North Carolina, on October 1, with more tour dates to be announced soon on the foundation’s website.

 

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