The first time that I met Captain Luke, we were getting ready to sit in a car together for the 6-hour haul up to Washington, DC. I had this idea of him that was heavily influenced by the [...]
Following last week’s group project about Ironing Board Sam, we’ve got a shorter piece cut together by just one of the students about music in Sam’s life. This video is a small [...]
Still going! Come on out we’ve moved it indoors: 6/7 – Roots and Leaves Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen and Ben Payton are performing their Delta Blues – they will make you [...]
Listen: I Need Some Money Adolphus Bell’s birthday is this week, so I thought it would be a good time to really visit his Music Maker release “One Man Band” and spend some time [...]
A couple of weeks ago, Ironing Board Sam took to the stage with a bevy of elementary school students backing him up on ukeleles, glockenspiels and with their voices; a middle school jazz band was [...]
My favorite part of this recipe is that it includes an ingredient called “Slap Your Mama.” This was so delicious that it was entirely gone and there were no leftovers to be shared in [...]
Listen: Vellevina I love this classic tune, almost more talking than singing, telling the story of, what else, a girl. It’s a simple tune, with Big Boy on the guitar and belting out lyrics. In [...]
“First time that I played washboard, I just won’t forget this…I was on stage had my thimbles on and two thimbles just popped off and just went out and that was just the funniest thing and I just [...]
The Librarian and The Banjo is a one-hour documentary about the life and legacy of a Milwaukee-born music librarian who proved that the banjo came from Africa with the slaves. Her work shattered [...]
For the past five months, Music Maker has partnered with Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies for a class in Multimedia Documentary. We mentioned the class in a previous blog [...]
Listen: Raisin’ Cain Robert Lee Coleman celebrated his 68th birthday yesterday. Having the opportunity to work with Coleman has been a privilege; after all, he is, in part, responsible for [...]
It has been just over a month since the Music Maker Blues Revue returned from Australia. The full experience is finally carving itself down to a cohesive memory. As a primer, the Music Maker [...]
Kickstarter has launched! Support it now! A new film, TENTH, by current filmmaker and former MMRF intern Tom Ciaburri, shines new light on Ironing Board Sam’s decades-long career, and a [...]
Since Aaron, our Artist Services Coordinator, works directly with the artists we serve, my role means I most often don’t work with the artists as directly. I mainly work with supporters, and [...]
One hot summer day, I was on the porch of Ezelle’s drink house with Captain Luke listening to his wild stories about Guitar Gabriel. He trailed off of one particularly interesting tale, despite [...]
Ironing Board Sam and the students of Orange Charter School in Hillsborough, NC, wowed parents, faculty, and other students with their performance of Blues and Rock & Roll yesterday! They [...]
Listen: Follow Your Heart’s Desire Photo of Pura Fé and Charly Lowry by Aaron Greenhood and Tim Duffy When I sent Taj Mahal the album that includes this track, he described Pura Fé as, “A [...]
There’s still time – give now and your support is doubled Have you heard? Generous supporters have offered to match any gift you make to Music Maker before June 30th – up to [...]
My brother Dan brought home each American Splendor comic book as Harvey Pekar published them when I was growing up. Harvey Pekar was a jazz critic, an original bebop fan, who wrote an annual [...]
Rhiannon Giddens, a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an MMRF board member and a Next Generation artist, has partnered here with her sister, Lalenja, to release a unique, multidimensional [...]
Listen: Here Come the Girls In our past twenty years, there are many artists Music Maker has worked with; some needed more help than others. In the case of Ernie, photographed here with legendary [...]
One of the great boons to being located in the Triangle region of North Carolina is the thriving cultural scene: museums, music and film abound, and this atmosphere naturally lends itself to the [...]
Listen: John Henry I was listening to the local jazz station on my way into work this morning and Kenny Burrell’s “Chitlins con Carne” came on. Kenny Burrell is a jazz guitarist and composer [...]
Music Maker at Shakori in 2011 The Music Maker Blues Revue will perform at Shakori Hills Music Festival in Pittsboro, NC this weekend. If you’re at the festival, you can see Ironing Board [...]
*At Music Maker, our hearts and thoughts are with all those affected by the tragedy in Boston yesterday. We think this poem from artist Ironing Board Sam is particularly appropriate right [...]
Listen: What Can A Man Do But Sing the Blues “Here was the deep, common core of humanity singing of its suffering and stoicism,” read a Sydney Morning Herald article about Dr. Burt’s recent [...]
[nggallery id=2] Dr. Burt flew up north this past weekend to perform with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and give a lecture at Dartmouth College. What Dom Flemons had to say in the program’s [...]
Read about how you can help artists through our $80,000 matching grant! At MMRF, some artists we partner with have never had a career in music, and have only played for their home communities. [...]
It seemed to me that everyone in the neighborhood would come by Ezelle’s drink house in Winston-Salem, when I was living nearby in the early ‘90s. You would see white tobacco growers from Stokes [...]
The Branchettes, the Pura Fé Trio and Little Freddie King will perform at the 2013 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April/May! For The Branchettes, a gospel group from Johnston County, [...]
Listen: I Know I’ve Been Changed Listening to “I Know I’ve Been Changed” by The Branchettes brings to mind a rolling wave, beginning with gentle, slight movements until it rises in [...]
This March, Tim and our interns from France, Simon and Raphael, headed on a trip to Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Lafayette and Middlesex, NC to visit with artists. They visited with Eddie [...]
In case you hadn’t heard, we were incredibly fortunate to line up an incredible touring gig for some of our artists in Australia. Bluesfest Byron Bay brought the Music Maker Relief [...]
Give today! Calling all Music Maker supporters! Generous Music Maker members have combined forces to propose a matching grant. They will match your gift up to $80,000 if you give by June 30th! [...]
Listen: Out of Jail Algia Mae Hinton is best known as a skilled guitarist and buck dancer. She often would combine these two to create a show-stopping performance. Perhaps that’s why “Out of [...]
Several generous supporters are matching your donations this spring. Find out how to make your gift count towards this match! This March, Tim and our interns from France, Simon and Raphael, [...]
[nggallery id=9] Check out these photos from the Music Maker Blues Revue’s tour of Australia! Aaron is managing the tour and regularly sends us updates. The artists are having a great time [...]
The Blues has been and always will be storytelling at its core. Originally in intimate home settings with family and friends, the players chose music as their vehicle to express guitar-laden [...]
Music Maker began working with a then-twelve year old guitar prodigy, Lakota John Locklear, in 2010. We’re committed to working with younger artists as time allows – we feel that young artists [...]
Lakota John Locklear is a great example of how the Blues is alive and well among young artists. A Next Generation Artist, and a Blues prodigy at 15 years old, Lakota John’s appreciation for [...]
Music Maker Artists Ironing Board Sam, Major Handy, Pat Wilder, Ardie Dean, Dr. Burt, Albert White and Nashid Abdul-Khaaliq are embarking on a ten-day tour of Australia, culminating in a series [...]
Listen: Baby’s Gone, Soon Be Gone Myself Jack Owens strips it all away in this rendition of “Baby’s Gone, Soon Be Gone Myself.” His plaintive wailing evokes the feeling of a rural funeral lament [...]
Essie Mae Brooks from Perry, Georgia has been singing and writing gospel songs since she was a girl. So, she’s kind of an expert. Her songs are meditations on getting through hard times, facing [...]
I just had a big birthday. When I reached 40, I was irked, because I felt the compulsion to accept certain realities about my life and where it might not go in the future. Having not won an [...]
After Sam visited the Orange County Charter School for the second time, we received a stack of thank-you notes and drawings done for him by the students! Sam was so moved, and we were too – [...]
Listen: Chapel Hill Boogie I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Chapel Hill, NC – ask any UNC graduate and they’ll say the same. For me it’s about more than just [...]
Nobody works as hard as a Bluesman, and if you’ve ever been at a bar where Ironing Board Sam is performing, you believe it. An energetic stage show is almost always followed by mingling with the [...]
Traveling with artists to shows is an essential, especially when your goal is to bring Roots music to audiences around the country and the world. Along the way I have often faced challenges [...]
Listen: Don’t Take Your Love From Me Mr. Q’s Cocktail Boogie is an album we had a debate about in the office yesterday. Aaron claimed we didn’t have it, I said we did, but we didn’t have [...]
The Life and Times of Jerry “Boogie” McCain: The Real Thing by Grover Brown is a tribute to Boogie, who passed last year. Boogie asked Brown to write his life’s story, and the [...]
“You listen to my CD in your ear, wear my tee shirt on your chest, and you’ll feel good about yourself in the morning.” This was Guitar Gabriel’s mantra between tunes at every one of the hundred [...]
Soul food and Roots music share a common birthplace among the poor, rural communities in the American South. As I recently read on NPR.com, “…soul food was survival food in the black [...]
Listen: Wayfaring Stranger Brothers have long played together throughout bluegrass and country history—from Bill and Charlie Monroe to Ira and Charlie Louvin to Carter and Ralph Stanley. The [...]
Ironing Board Sam is sharing his talents with youth through an exciting program at the Orange County Charter School in Hillsborough, made possible by the Jazz Foundation’s Agnes Varis Jazz [...]
Working at Music Maker invites death and mortality into your life. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, sad yes. But death is a condition that no living person can escape. That’s life. When you get [...]
In a society where the healthcare industry is a booming business and Americans are increasingly concerned with the upkeep of their bodies, some organs still get downright overlooked and [...]
There is no wrong answer when Ironing Board Sam asks you “What kind of pie do you like?” If you ever go see him play, you inevitably will be asked to surrender your preference to public scrutiny. [...]
The Music Maker Signifier has launched! Music Maker’s new blog written by staff, friends, fans and musicians will bring you original, interesting content with a dash of signature [...]
Ironing Board Sam’s first visit to Atlanta in over a decade will be playing at the “Kings of the Keyboard” Gala event at Blind Willie’s on March 1st and 2nd. He’ll [...]
It was an unseasonably warm day in mid-January when Jeff Littlejohn came out to Hillsborough to record a few songs to send to our musical director, Ardie Dean. He parked himself in our small [...]
Ironing Board Sam has bad luck with cars – but somehow always manages to coax out every mile they can give him. The day he moved to North Carolina a few years ago, his old van broke down just a [...]
It’s not Valentines Day without Valentines! The tradition of witty one-liners, professions of love with candy or just plain good feeling is a great way to cheer up dreary February, and [...]
Listen: Put On Your Red Dress Captain Luke’s recording of this much-loved tune is particularly appropriate given the time of year. (Need a last-minute Valentine for your sweetie? Check out [...]
The Carolina Chocolate Drops were nominated for Best Traditional Folk Album at this year’s Grammys, and while they didn’t come away from the day with their 2nd award, we’re [...]
Welcome to our blog, the Music Maker Signifier, and Happy Fat Tuesday! On this day of cultural celebration, we would like to introduce you to the newest endeavor from Music Maker Relief [...]
Orange County, North Carolina has been home to some of our nations most influential blues musicians. Libba Cotton became a darling of the folk revival and her finger style guitar playing remains [...]
Music Maker’s Founder, Tim Duffy, will give a talk on the Roots of Music Maker and our 20-year history working with traditional musicians here in North Carolina and throughout the South. [...]
Listen: If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again When Elder Anderson Johnson shouts “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again/How happy I would be” there is no doubt the raw truth of those words. I’m [...]
George Higgs (b.1930-d.2013) has been on our minds here at Music Maker this week. The multi-talented bluesman passed away on January 29th, and he leaves a warm legacy behind. Funeral arrangements [...]
We’re excited to announce a partnership with an undergraduate class offering at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies this spring. DOCST 460S: “Multimedia Documentary” is a [...]
Listen: Reuben George Higgs (b.1930-d.2013) has been on our minds here at Music Maker this week. The multi-talented bluesman passed away on January 29th, and he leaves a warm legacy behind. One [...]
MMRF is perhaps as known for its talented blues musicians as it is for its legendary photographs capturing the artists. The walls of the MMRF office in Hillsborough are lined with black and white [...]
Bluesfest Byron Bay is bringing the Music Maker Relief Foundation Blues Revue to Australia and the Northcote Social Club will host the players on March 27! Bluesfest Byron Bay is one of the [...]
Music Maker artist Chicago Bob Nelson passed away on January 16, 2013 at the age of 69. Music Maker staff, as well as all of his fans, are very saddened by the news of the passing of such an [...]
Listen: Fever The late Precious Bryant (b.1942-d.2013) didn’t release an album until 2002, despite first being recorded by folklorist George Mitchell almost four decades earlier. Precious, who [...]
What do 42 Ukuleles, 21 Glockenschpiels, a middle school jazz band and one ironing board have in common? They will be jamming with blues legend Ironing Board Sam throughout the spring term under [...]
Tim, the news of the passing of our dear lady of sweet song and voice underscores the enduring significance of “The Music Maker Foundation.” That these amazing people and artists were [...]
Music Maker Partner Artist Precious Bryant, (b. January 4, 1942), of Waverly Hall, Georgia, passed away over the weekend, on January 12th, 2013. We at Music Maker, along with the Music Maker [...]
Tim is down with the flu this week, and while on the phone with him he asked me if I was feeling okay. I told him we’d wiped down the office with Lysol after he went home, so I’m [...]
Listen: Glory Glory I’d like to believe that Bishop Dready and Sister Marie Manning’s rendition of “Glory, Glory” gives a taste of what salvation must feel like. Bishop Dready and Sister Marie’s [...]
Happy Birthday, Elvis! To celebrate, we have a recipe that Pat “Mother Blues” Cohen sent us a couple months ago for an Elvis-inspired Sandwich. Let us know if you try it [...]
Listen: How Lucky Can One Man Be “How Lucky Can One Man Be” appears on Big Ron’s Music Maker release The Great Unknown. This week’s dig is an earlier recording. It’s stripped down, Big Ron [...]
In 2012 Music Maker accomplished so much with your support. Boo Hanks went on tour with Dom Flemons to promote their collaborative album that crossed generational lines. Ironing Board Sam was [...]
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