Thanks all the same, England, but we’ve got our own Amy Winehouse.
And our version has twice her soul, with none of the crazy.
Read Full Article
WORLD-RENOWNED BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC
PARTNERS WITH DELTA BLUES MUSEUM AND ROBERT JOHNSON FOUNDATION TO FIND LOCAL
TEENS FOR FULL SCHOLARSHIPS TO STUDY IN BOSTON THIS SUMMER .
Read Full Article
Clarksdale resident Travis Calvin, a member of the
Delta Blues Museum’s after-school arts and education program, has received
a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music’s five-week Summer
Performance Program that will be held July 12-Aug. 15 in Boston.
Read
Full Article
CLARKSDALE - When Clarksdale’s first historical Walk of Fame
marker is dedicated to superstar Sam Cooke on April 4, the event
will include a reminiscence of the celebrity and the New World District ’s
rich cultural history.
Following the bronze plaque’s unveiling on Issaquena Avenue
outside the New Roxy Theatre where Sam Cooke once performed, a reception
and a “I Remember Sam” program will be held in the renovated
Greyhound Bus Station. Read
Full Article
BY any measure, it's been a decent year for David "Honey boy" Edwards.
He won a Grammy for his work on "Last of the Delta Bluesmen," had
a part in the feature film "Walk Hard," is touring and
has a new album out, "Roamin' and Ramblin' " (earwigmusic.com). Read
Full Article
The Mississippi Transportation
Commision recently approved
a grant to the Delta Blues Museum for more than $1.5
million.
The money will be used for expansion of the former railroad
depot in which the blues
museum has been housed since 1999. This expansion will
mean an addition of at least 2,700 square
feet to the blues museum
for new permanent educational exhibits. Delta Blues
Museum director Shelley Ritter said the expansion
project has been in the works
since before her arrival at the
museum in July 2003."There was talk of [expansion] prior
to my getting here, but we've been working to bring the existing
museum up to certain standards before expanding," Ritter
said. "It was a direction from the [Delta Blues Museum]
Board [of Trustees]. They wanted to do this expansion, and
I've
been working towards it since I've been here."
Ritter
said that part of the addition will probably be devoted to housing
the Muddy Waters cabin. The full cabin has never been on display
in the museum, because the existing gallery room is not tall enough
to house some of the cabin's timbers.
Before the museum could file
for the grant, it had to
first receive permission
from Clarksdale's mayor and
board of commissioners. Mayor Henry Espy said he was
more
than happy to support the
request."I think this grant is going
to be excellent for the Delta Blues Museum and for Clarksdale as
a whole," Espy said. "Clarksdale is the birthplace and
home of the blues and, as a town, we should do anything we can to
promote that." Also aiding the museum in its campaign for the
grant were 25th District
Rep. John Mayo, 26th District
Rep. Chuck Espy and Senator
Robert Jackson, D-Marks, who all wrote letters
to the Mississippi Department
of Transportation in support
of the museum. Ritter says
the Mississippi Arts Commission has also been
supportive in the plans for
the expansion.
The museum will develop
a schedule for the expansion
once the paperwork with the
Mississippi Department of
Transportation is completed. According to the MDOT
guidelines, construction
can begin no later than September
2009. "We
hope we can begin sooner than that, but there's a lot of planning
phases we will have to go through before that," Ritter says. "All
the drawings and design development has to be done, so we're not
ready to go just yet." Ritter said she hopes the addition will
prove a significant enhancement
to the blues museum.
"I think
the museum is going to be empowered to realize its potential," she
said. "We're finally going to have some resources to really
honor the artists and give them what they deserve." The Delta
Blues Museum was founded
in 1979 by Sid Graves and
the Carnegie Public Library
Board of Trustees and is Mississippi's oldest music
museum. The building currently
housing the museum at 1 Blues
Alley was built in 1918 to
serve as the freight depot for the Yazoo and
Mississippi Valley Railroad.
It is approximately 12,000
square feet, five thousand
of which are devoted to exhibits.
To learn more about the Delta Blues Museum and its expansion
plan, visit www.deltabluesmuseum.com.
© Clarksdale Press Register
2007
May 25, 2007 Rand McNally, America’s largest map company,
just put the Delta Blues Museum on the map — literally.
The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale is highlighted as a “can’t
miss” stop in Rand McNally’s new Southeast Getaway
Guide. The guide blends travel information and recommended stops
with maps designed to help vacationers find their way to the
destinations featured in the guide.
“ We wanted to unearth the best-kept secrets in each
state — things that they might not discover on their own,”
says Rand McNally Editorial Director Laurie Borman. “As
more people grow up in one place and move another, they might
not know the area right around them. This book is a great resource
for locals to explore their state, too.”
The Delta Blues Museum is just one of the exceptional destinations
suggested in the guide, which takes an in-depth look at restaurants,
lodging and one-of-a-kind attractions in Alabama, Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
“ Research shows that more and more Americans are choosing
to take their vacations close to home and explore the areas
where they live,” says Robert Apatoff, president and chief
executive officer of Rand McNally. “You might live in
an area for years before discovering all it has to offer. We
designed this guide for Southeasterners who want to find the
local treasures hidden in their own backyards.
“We are delighted to be recognized in the Southeast Getaway
Guide,” said Shelley Ritter, Director of the Delta Blues
Museum. “Rand McNally is the established name in maps
and travel guides. It’s wonderful to know that people
who travel in Mississippi will not only know about us, but will
be able to see us right on the map.”
For more information, visit www.randmcnally.com
or call (800) 333-0136.
February 10, 2007 The Blues Music Foundation, a non-profit
organization launched during 2003's Year of the Blues celebration,
announced that it has awarded $191,650 in grants to non-profit
organizations and museums that celebrate and preserve the blues.
An award of $25,000 was made to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale,
MS.
Established in 2003, the Foundation set out to dedicate the
net proceeds from the "Salute to the Blues" benefit
concert to underwrite projects that promote blues education,
assist organizations with special blues-related needs, and support
other worthy blues causes. The benefit concert was produced
by Experience Music Project at Radio City Music Hall in New
York in February, 2003.
Additionally, the Foundation committed the net proceeds from
Lightning in a Bottle -- the concert film that resulted from
“Salute to the Blues" -- to help fund the blues grants.
The film was produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Antoine
Fuqua and had its theatrical and DVD/CD release in 2004.
Highlights of programs funded include: $8,000 to the Beale
Street Caravan for the archiving, preserving and cataloging
of a selection of sources materials of its weekly, hour-long,
internationally syndicated, non-commercial blues radio program;
$25,000 to the Carnegie Hall Society to support Carnegie Hall's
Perelman American Roots program, an educational initiative that
integrates the study of American roots music into the middle
school social studies curriculum; $15,000 to the Highway 61
Radio Program to secure the future of this twenty-year radio
show and build the collection at the world's largest Blues Archive;
and $3,000 to the River City Blues Society of Richmond, VA to
create a "blues package" that will include curriculum
materials, recordings, documents and transcriptions, lyrics,
and visual material to be used in the classroom by teachers
in a variety of disciplines.
Other organizations to receive funds are: American Roots Music
Education ($7,150); Blues Lovers United of San Diego ($10,000);
Canada South Blues Society ($9,000); Center for Southern Folklore
($25,000); The Colorado Blues Society ($13,000); Delta Blues
Museum ($25,000); Mississippi Valley Blues Society ($6,500);
Music Maker Relief Foundation ($25,000); Santa Barbara Blues
Foundation ($10,000); and Suncoast Blues Society Inc. ($10,000).
