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. For more information, please click here.