B.B. King's foreword
I was brought up on a farm in the Mississippi Delta, plowing fields behind a mule. My mother’s first cousin, Bukka White, was a real-deal bluesman who cut records for the Victor and Vocalion labels. I idolized him and fellow bluesmen Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. The blues is about feelings and their blues meant hope, excitement, and pure emotion. Those artists’ guitars sang just like their voices.
So many bluesmen and blueswomen have given their hearts and souls to this music. Unfortunately many never rise from obscurity or have only a brief moment in the spotlight and thus face hard times when they can no longer perform.
I met the Music Maker Relief Foundation’s Timothy Duffy while recording my album Deuces Wild in 1997. I learned of the mission of the group and how it was helping document and nourish the musical culture in which I was raised. I was delighted to know that the foundation had taken a unique approach by helping these artists with their daily needs so they could return to making music.
Tim gave me a number of CDs of Music Maker artists’ work and when I played them later that night in my Los Angeles hotel room, it was like breathing the good country air from back home. The music invigorated me. The cover photos struck me, reminding me of the musicians I grew up around. I knew that when people found out the foundation's work, they would be happy to help and I encouraged Tim to be steadfast in his work.
By collecting Mark Austin’s, Axel Küstner’s, and his own photographs in Music Makers: Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America, Tim has provided an important and authentic document of this little known but vibrant world This selection from the MMRF archives takes me back to the farms, the drink houses, the front porches, the kitchen tables where I first heard this music and began making it myself. By documenting the faces and the deep, soulful eyes of the people who make the music I love, these photographers preserve a dimension of blues culture that could easily be lost forever. Music Makers, like the foundation from which it takes its name, preserves an American essence we can’t afford to lose.
I cannot encourage people enough to learn more about MMRF and to listen to the music that they document and promote. The compilation of Music Maker artists enclosed in this book will make you want to cry and shout for joy as only the real blues can do!