The Blues Foundation

Founded in 1980, The Blues Foundation's mission is to preserve Blues history, celebrate blues excellence and support blues education. They promote the appreciation of the Blues through their Blues Hall of Fame induction, which seeks to honour the pioneers. Through its annual W.C Handy Blues Awards and international challenge the foundation also celebrates the best in current Blues. Through the blues kids competition and development of programmes it explores how the blues can take its rightful place in the school’s curriculum.

A few years ago the Executive Director of the Blues Foundation was Howard Stovall, maintaining his family’s link with the Blues – it was on his family's farm that Muddy Waters lived and worked. This was what he had to say about the evolution of the Blues and where it might all be going.

“Musicians are musicians regardless of the genres, they will take the best of what they hear around them. With the incredible communication in the world today blues artists are getting bombarded by influences that you wouldn’t have found in Mississippi in the 1920s, 30s or 40s.  So the music continues to evolve and any attempt to draw a line in the sand and say whatever is on the other side of this line is no longer blues is just killing a real dynamic and evolving art form.  You can’t put it under a bell jar and say this is blues and everything else isn’t. The fact that blues has an identity, separate from other genres for as long as it has, is a testament to the fact that the Blues is an art form that you can’t dilute or compromise, no matter how many influences come into it.”

So true. . .

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 http://www.facebook.com/TheBluesFoundation