[Dixielandjazz] Living Blues Magzine celebrates 40th anniversary

Wed Sep 15 07:38:33 PDT 2010

To:  DJML and Musicians & Jazzfans list

From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

Here's article from Associate Press about the 40th anniversary of Living
Blues Magazine, now owned by the University of Mississippi.  Two of our
Musicians and Jazzfans listmates  have studied  at Ole Miss' Blues Archive-

Bluesman Steve Cheseborough,  now of Portland, OR and saxophonist/chair of
English Dept. Thom Botsford, of Pensacola State College. Steve has degree
from U. of Mississippi and Botsford did a summer scholarship at the Blues
Archives a few years ago.  I hope each will wish to post something about
their experiences there.

By SHELIA BYRD (AP) - 5 days ago

OXFORD, Miss. - As the Vietnam War raged and rock 'n roll reeled from the
breakup of the Beatles, a ragtag group of enthusiasts put out the first
edition of what they hoped would become a showcase magazine for the blues
music they loved.

The 1970 debut issue of Living Blues was peddled at a popular Chicago record
store, at nightclubs and from the trunks of cars.

Living Blues, now owned by the University of Mississippi, is the country's
oldest magazine dedicated to the genre. Its current 40th anniversary issue
features images from more than 90 past covers, including some of the biggest
names in the business.

The magazine, published every two months, has an international distribution
and circulation of more than 25,000. Many fans are hardcore traditionalists
who like their blues tinged with the grit born of the Delta region.

Brett Bonner, the magazine's fifth editor in four decades, attributes its
longevity to a formula from which it rarely strays: allowing the artists to
describe how their culture drives the music.

Bonner said it's a style that works whether they're profiling a legend, such
as Honeyboy Edwards, or a relative newcomer like Marquise Knox.

"We're far more interested in telling the life story of a musician, the
culture that created him, than we are in telling the kind of guitar that he
plays or the strings that he uses," Bonner said. "People who don't live in
Mississippi are fascinated with the culture."

Blues music arose under the South's plantation system, fueled by the
poverty-plagued existence of many of the early black artists who sang about
their condition.

In the magazine's first quarterly issue in 1970, Howlin' Wolf said he chose
to play the music because, "I never could make no money on nothin' but the
blues."

Bonner and the writers travel across the country and abroad, but it's a
skeletal crew. He operates from his home about 20 miles east of the Oxford
campus.

Writers and photographers get paid, but not much, Bonner said. He said the
other national blues magazine is Blues Revue which, according to its
website, this month began celebrating its 20th year in business.

Blues historian Jim O'Neal, one of Living Blues' founders, said he and a few
others borrowed $300 from Bob Koester, owner of Chicago's Jazz Record Mart,
to get started. The record store was an information center for blues lovers.

The concept was to publicize music that had been popular in Chicago
nightclubs in black communities, said Bruce Iglauer, another magazine
founder and who is also founder and president of Alligator Records.

Iglauer had just moved from Wisconsin to Chicago to be near the blues scene
and he worked at Jazz Record Mart.

"The first meetings were at my little apartment," Iglauer said. "We had this
passion for blues and we were frustrated because there were British blues
magazines and French and Swedish magazines, and here in the home of the
blues, there was no magazine."

O'Neal recalled that Iglauer once told him, "in five years, we would have
published all the information people would need to know about blues and that
would be it."

Four decades later finances are still an issue, said Bonner, but that hasn't
stopped the presses.

Ever since the magazine was acquired by the university in 1983 for $1 from
O'Neal and his then-wife, Amy, it's been classified a not-for-profit entity.

O'Neal, who lives in Kansas City, said he decided to transfer the magazine
to the university after talking with Bill Ferris, who was director of the
university's Center for the Study of Southern Culture. O'Neal said he
recognized the potential of the magazine at Ole Miss. But there was another
motivation: The magazine would be housed on a campus where a landmark civil
rights battle was fought when the first black student, James Meredith,
enrolled in 1962.

"Just because of the history of racial tension at Ole Miss I thought that it
would be an important statement if the university could publish a magazine
about African-American music and show how much things were changing in
Mississippi," O'Neal said.

For many blues artists, who often live from hand-to-mouth waiting on the
next gig, being on the cover on Living Blues is like a rock star's dream of
being on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Singer Bobby Rush said Living Blues was the first to support him as he tried
to cross over to white audiences.

"Living Blues was one of the few that embraced me as a blues legend. Many
men like myself had to cut records for white people, and then cut another
kind for black people. I didn't do that," Rush said.

Charlie Musselwhite, a Sonoma County, Calif., bluesman who was born in
Kosciusko, Miss., said he's never been on the cover of Living Blues, but
doesn't feel slighted. Musselwhite, who is white, said the publication dubs
itself "the magazine of the African-American blues tradition."

Musselwhite, 66, said he's collected every issue of the magazine.

"I've got them in boxes. I just can't seem to throw them away," Musselwhite
said. "I'm just real happy for them that they've stayed in business all
these years. Other blues magazines have folded. It's preserving an important
history of an American art form. You can't find that information hardly
anywhere else."

Want to read more about the Blues Archive, at Univ. of Mississippi?  Here's
a link:

www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/archives/blues