Music Maker Relief Foundation – the non-profit organization that helps traditional, southern musicians who live in poverty and has been featured on PBS News Hour, CBS News, and NPR – released a compilation album celebrating its 25th anniversary entitled Blue Muse and a new book on photography on UNC Press/New Orleans Museum of Art called Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs.

Timothy Duffy has been photographing musicians throughout the Southeastern U.S. for over thirty years. His new book, Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs ($60, hardcover), features portraits of blues, jazz, gospel and folk musicians and places they live and perform. The artist’s monograph is published by the University of North Carolina Press in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Blue Muse premiered as a solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art on April 25th, 2019 and will run through July 28th, 2019. The exhibit, will feature the original wet plate collodion tintypes, and is comprised of thirty photographs from the book. In addition to the book and exhibit, the compilation album, released by Music Maker Relief Foundation, includes the music of the artists featured. Duffy’s tintypes have been featured in the NY Times.

The album features contributions from Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and 17-time GRAMMY winner Eric Clapton (in a previously unreleased track), Blues Hall of Famer, two-time GRAMMY winner, and Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner Taj Mahal, “more than convincing” (NY Times) soul man and Dan Auerbach favorite Robert Finley, and GRAMMY-winner founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops Dom Flemons. In keeping with Music Maker’s mission to preserve the musical traditional of the south by supporting the musicians who make it, the album spans a range of living southern music culture and fans will hear blues, folk, songster, jump blues, soul, Appalachian, garage blues, and gospel music here. The 21-track set features liner notes by Vogue and Guardian writer Rebecca Bengal.

To order either or both, please click here.
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