Watch the NC Roots Music Series: Facebook Live YouTube Live Music Maker Relief Foundation has partnered with the Arts and Science Council’s Culture Blocks program and the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Library to present the NC Roots Music Series featuring live stream performances by North Carolina musicians: Lakota John, The Hamiltones, Dedicated Men of Zion, Martha […]

NPR Music’s All Songs Considered featured the Dedicated Men of Zion‘s song Down Here Lord on their New Music Friday playlist. NPR Music had this to say about the song and upcoming album, “The world needs this music right now.” Listen to the playlist below:

Loneliness is a recurring subject in the Blues. A lover gone or the loss of a family member typically inspires one of the most archetypal themes within the genre. For our Partner Artists, music serves as a much needed salve for coping with such hardships. But things have changed in the world of COVID-19.  Our […]

Raw Sugar by Cootie Stark This week’s blog post touched on the social isolation that our Partner Artists are experiencing in the pandemic. On this track from blind acoustic bluesman Cootie Stark you can sink right into the loneliness of the times. Cootie had a way laying things out there real clear and capturing a […]

Rufus McKenzie was born to a sharecropping family in Perry, Georgia, in 1927. As a child he worked in the cotton fields, singing to his mule to pick up the pace. Rufus reflects, “I learned my music through sadness and coming up hard. I had to wear white people’s worn out shoes. I had little […]