Please give Ben Payton a warm welcome to Music Maker! Payton, of Jackson, Mississippi, is an acoustic blues artist with strong roots in the Delta. As a teenager in the 1960s his family moved to Chicago, and he took advantage of the city’s vibrant blues scene, playing with artists such as Bobby Rush. He put […]

As Aaron puts it “this is the ‘We Are the World’ of Blues Christmas!” We have to admit, we wrote a Diggin’ on this last year, but its worth repeating – if you don’t have Cootie Stark’s “Christmas with Cootie” album on your rotation this Holiday, you’re missing out. The album, featuring Cootie and friends […]

In the winter of 1995, I discovered how a simple gift can be the difference between life and death for our elderly artists. In that year, there was a terrible ice storm in Winston-Salem, NC and many parts of town were without electricity. The first day after the storm MM artist Willa Mae Buckner, who lived in an old drafty […]