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If you haven’t joined Music Maker Listener’s Circle yet, perhaps No. 45 in our series will convince you that it’s finally time to do it.

No. 45 in our series is called “A Geographic Cure.”

Blues songs often talk of traveling. They tell the stories of — and stories from — communities all over our great country, places the players have experienced or lived in and decided to celebrate in song.

Traveling and playing the blues in 1999, clockwise from top left, Neal Pattman, Cootie Stark, and Beverly “Guitar” Watkins. We loved them all, and we miss them still.

This release collects 19 songs from the Music Maker archive, and it will take you all over our nation.

I never have been to Kansas City, but I feel I have been, having heard countless versions of “Kansas City,” rendered here by Macavine Hayes and Cootie Stark. “Going to Louisiana,” another Macavine Hayes number here, makes me long for the day when I can finally get back to that amazing state. Blind Willie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues,” played here by Paul Geremia, has been part of my life for so long that I feel I’ve always been in Statesboro, Georgia.

One day when this pandemic lifts, I will get up and go again, drive across the country, discover America once more. The years pass on by, but I still have so many places to go. When I hear these songs, I dream of that day. And we hope this CD helps you dream, too.

You can expect more great Listener’s Circle releases to come your way this year. We’ve invited my friend Ardie Dean to help us compile all of 2021’s releases. Ardie was the drummer for Guitar Gabriel’s Brothers in the Kitchen, and we’ve worked together since 1991. We recently sent him an updated and better organized hard drive of my 30 years of recordings, and he is almost finished with our six releases that will be coming out this year. He assures me there is a pile of diamonds still to be mined from the wonderful recordings our partner artists have done with us over the years. I knew our catalog was deep, but the knowledge that we have another six releases coming out this year from our seemingly unending treasure trove of music surprises even me.

Thanks so much for supporting the Music Makers!

—  Tim Duffy