{"id":17708,"date":"2019-12-11T05:30:50","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T10:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=17708"},"modified":"2019-10-14T12:11:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T16:11:17","slug":"40-years-of-the-delta-blues-museum-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/12\/11\/40-years-of-the-delta-blues-museum-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"40 Years of the Delta Blues Museum (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

But funding continues to be a challenge. \u201cFundraising is really crucial, especially now as the museum environment becomes more competitive,\u201d Ritter says. \u201cThe museum receives a dedicated tax millage from the city, and then our other monies are primarily admissions and gift shop sales.\u201d Gresham notes that the millage represents about $100,000 a year. With more than a hint of frustration in her voice, Ritter adds, \u201cIn 40 years, we’ve never gotten any direct state funding; we’ve only received it through competitive grants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education is a big part of the Delta Blues Museum’s current mission. One of its most successful and high-profile programs is based on an initiative started in nearby Lambert, Mississippi by \u201cMr. Johnnie\u201d Billington, a blues musician and educator. \u201cWhen he was taking breaks in his shop, he was teaching students of all ages how to sing and play the blues,\u201d Ritter says. \u201cWe found out about it, moved it in to the museum and kind of formalized it. We do it four days a week, 52 weeks a year now,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Billington \u201cmade it his mission to teach children how to play the blues, how to be performers,\u201d says John Ruskey. \u201cHe never made it big in the juke joint scene, but his efforts directly led to the present generation of musicians and to all of the educational activities now taking place at the museum. That all started with Mr. Johnnie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarksdale natives Anthony \u201cBig A\u201d Sherrod and Lee Williams are among the program’s most esteemed alumni.Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram earned his nickname while being educated in the museum’s arts and education program. Bill Gresham says that the museum \u201cis one of the few places that continues to teach the blues on a daily basis, and at no cost to the individual.\u201d Jim O’Neal emphasizes that \u201cJohn Ruskey was instrumental in getting that education program going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferris notes that such a program was a dream of the late B.B. King. \u201cHe wanted to see the blues taught in K-12, and colleges and universities. Today, that dream is a reality. We\u2019ve seen really a sea change in how the blues is recognized and embraced by mainstream America and by Mississippi where it was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mississippi now boasts a proper, demarcated Blues Trail, and other attractions including the B.B. King Blues Museum have flourished. But the Delta Blues Museum is at the crossroads of it all. \u201cI put the Delta Blues Museum at the top of the mountain,\u201d says Dr. Ferris. \u201cIt was one of the earliest institutions that officially recognized the blues before anyone else did it. It’s a forerunner of what is now a rich array of resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the museum’s reputation is spreading worldwide. \u201cWhen I was on the board, every month we\u2019d get a list of where visitors are from,\u201d says Bill Gresham. \u201cDuring the summer months, it could be 30 foreign countries, and at one point we had visitors from every state in the U.S. come through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Sid Graves first envisioned a museum completely dedicated to the blues in 1979, the Delta Blues Museum has grown into a world class attraction,\u201d says Craig Ray, Director of Visit Mississippi, the state’s tourism office.\u201cIt’s an outstanding anchor for other institutions honoring blues culture. And while the exhibits in the museum will continue to tell the story of the Delta blues, its legacy is the musicians who will continue to share their musical talents honed in on the skills learned in the museum\u2019s educational programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gresham says that the state’s blues-focused destinations promote each other. \u201cWe want people to come through the Delta Blues Museum and then extend their stay in the Delta. They can go to Indianola to the B. B. King Museum or to Leland for the Leland Blues Museum, or just follow the Blues Trail.\u201d And all of that has been a boon for Clarksdale, too. \u201cI go sit out in front of a little place here, Yazoo Pass, a lot of afternoons,\u201d Gresham says. \u201cYou’ll you see people from all over going to the little clubs. You ask them, ‘Where you from?’ And they say, ‘I\u2019m from London.’ ‘I\u2019m from so and so.’ They\u2019re from everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the museum\u2019s one of the most important institutions for blues fans,\u201d says Jim O’Neal. \u201cAnd I give a lot of credit to Shelly Ritter. Without her, it certainly wouldn\u2019t be what it is. It\u2019s great that there are other attractions, but I think the Delta Blues Museum\u2019s the place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest tourism attraction here in town,\u201d says Panny Mayfield. \u201cBut it’s also just a fun place to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing out that the Delta Blues Museum is the first museum dedicated solely to the blues, current museum board chair Jim Herring says that it’s \u201cthe crown jewel of the blues world. It’s the the starting point; others may make that claim, but we actually own it.\u201d Malcolm White, Executive Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, agrees. \u201cA lot of the later work on blues tourism at the state level was built on the Delta Blues Museum\u2019s proven success,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A significant byproduct of the museum’s success has been to bring diverse communities together. Jim O’Neal recalls a Saturday night blues concert years ago. \u201cThe guy who was the mayor at the time said, ‘This is the first time this many black and white people have been in a room together at the time in Clarksdale.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferris reflects on the museum’s greatest contribution: \u201cBeing faithful to its place, its community, and reaching out to both black and white and ethnic worlds that are so deeply rooted in Clarksdale and the Mississippi Delta,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd they have done that in a systematic, committed way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two \u2026 But funding continues to be a challenge. \u201cFundraising is really crucial, especially now as the museum environment becomes more competitive,\u201d Ritter says. \u201cThe museum receives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41],"tags":[4036],"class_list":["post-17708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","tag-delta-blues-museum","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17708"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17719,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17708\/revisions\/17719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}