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National Blues Museum

Just in, National Blues Museum publicity in France.
This helps drive the Int'l awareness and support needed for a project of this scale - Link

Translated by Google.................

All those present of 6 to 8 October 2011 at King Biscuit Festival in Helena, Arkansas, and October 9, 2011 at the Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi were impressed by the information campaign conducted by Dave Beardsley to publicize the project National Museum of the blues (National Blues Museum) which should open its doors in downtown St. Louis in 2013. Each viewer (or almost) in the audience was presented with a nice card stock paper front / back postcard size with the project. A real painstaking work in the service of a project for the less ambitious.

Appointments include: the National Blues Museum will occupy a huge building at 801 Washington Avenue in St. Louis on a surface of over 2300 m2. The museum includes many exhibits of course but also a 150-seat theater and a recording studio. There will also be organized concerts, master classes, seminars, debates ...

This project is a continuation and perhaps as a result of many other smaller projects that have emerged since a good ten years especially in the delta region (in the state of Mississippi) the birthplace of the blues. For the Americans realized that they could take advantage of the blues to generate a new form of tourism and thus generate dollars in poor areas and under-resourced. Thus, it has actually seen the emergence of museums (Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale and Leland, BB King Museum in Indianola let alone three large museums on Memphis blues music close to the Sun, Stax and Rock & Soul), many painted walls (at Leland, Indianola, Clarksdale etc ...), statues (Howling Wolf in West Point, Otis Redding in Macon ... etc.), streets with names of bluesmen (John Lee Hooker in Clarksdale, Helena Frank Frost, Willie Dixon in Vicksburg etc ...), and panels of the Mississippi blues trail that grow like mushrooms.

So some were surprised that after being totally ignored for over 100 years (if not despised), blues become institutional. They fear that businessmen and politicians seize it to make money on his back while all the creators of this music are no longer there to enjoy the financial benefits. Similarly, some gossip will always say that if we create such a museum then it means that the blues is dead and buried.

Of course, one can not deny the marketing aspect and the financial logic that accompany this project but I think the amateur, the blues is especially passionate about seeing that this will advance the schmilblick, this will allow to discover and enjoy the blues to a wider audience. The blues has always been a music more or less confidential, shunned by radio and mainstream media will finally have an attractive showcase. And it should also be noted that there is also an educational "Blues in the Schools" that includes tours of the museum by young school children to help them discover the blues and its history. Behind all this, it is not only businessmen, there are real enthusiasts who have a genuine interest in this music and struggling to support their passion.

The opening of this museum is also an integral part of the revitalization of the center of St. Louis, and it's an opportunity to focus on this city that has experienced a second part of the twentieth century in which difficult it has lost half its population is being significantly reduced. The city was still in the hole there is a good ten years has picked up dramatically. St. Louis is now a pleasant town to live with lots of green space, not too much traffic congestion or parking, with a significant cultural and sporting life, particularly a prominent blues scene. For in addition to its rich history, St. Louis is full of bluesmen and blueswomen often overlooked as talented as she has many clubs, some blues programmed daily, it is also home to great festivals like the Big Muddy Blues and Blues Week. In short, it does not lack much in St. Louis to become a hub of blues, and this ambitious project of the National Museum of the blues could make St. Louis the future capital of blues.

For more information, visit the official website of the museum:
http://www.nationalbluesmuseum.org/

You will see that it is possible to make an online donation to help fund the project.

More France press

Dave Beardsley
314.378.0659
Co-Founder, National Blues Museum
Director of Education and Outreach
dave@nationalbluesmuseum.org | www.nationalbluesmuseum.org