Sunday, May 27, 2018

Update on Blues Moon Hiatus May 27, 2018


Greetings, music fans!
The past month of hiatus has been restful and productive - have managed to help a few people and organizations with fundraisers, taught a mini-class, got some of my archival needs addressed and finally found a tool that might provide the capacity to preserve recorded media on deteriorating cassette tapes to be transferred to a less risky medium (who knows how long THAT will be viable, but hey... just cannot risk losing interviews with Koko Taylor, Nappy Brown, Junior Wells and too many others to count). Fingers crossed it works and the tapes are not too far gone to play the one time I need them to play in order to x-fer them.

In the meantime, I have been working on lots of writing projects for magazines, and hopefully soon: a new book. I am overseeing a fight to the finish on three possible ways to go, and have relegated that fight to the back of my brain until a winner emerges victorious. Saves so much tsuris if I make my back brain supervise the arguments and let them duke it out in my subconscious. Avoid the mayhem of the turmoil, right? LOL

Finally, am toying with the idea of applying for some mini-grants and artist-in-residence positions - such as that. Would give me a place to share the lore that I know with people who want to learn about it. I was asked to come back and teach at USC, but there are some reasons why that would not be among my first choices these days... parking being one and grading is another. I recall when I was in my mid-teens there was an experiment in education that involved free-form learning and the lore that I took away from those classes stuck with me in a way that still amazes and pleases me. The pressure "of a grade" was off and we decided with the professor at the end, what the grade would be. What was surprising is how fair and objective people were about what they had put into the class in terms of effort and what they took away from it in terms of knowledge.

So, I think a more free-form set up might be fun to try with people whose motive is simply to learn. I won't give up on teaching in a higher ed setting, but doing something a little more creative based and not evaluation based would be inspiring, I think!

Let me know on my FB page if you'd be interested in a class that involves music of the Carolinas and incorporating a short tutorial in making a Blues Suitcase (a tiny carrying case for your harmonica)... what? You don't have a harmonica? Well, that needs to be corrected ASAP. Mast General Store has them.

I have a couple of months left and I'll check in and keep you posted on my progress this summer. Looking forward to playing my music for you on my return... August 28th - and I hope to see all of you at my next book talk:
LIVE APPEARANCE
and FREE MUSIC LECTURE:

Irmo Branch of the Lexington County Library at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 12th... free! But do bring some cash - I find that nearly everyone who attends wants to have the book on SC Blues on their shelf... or to give as gifts - Price is $24 (which includes pre-paid state sales tax) ... and I'll sign your book for you and your gift recipient(s). I don't take cards since the BIGS decided vendors, not banks, would have to take responsibility for the safety of credit card transactions. I don't have an IT security team, and would hate for your card to be compromised ... that would give me THA'Blues! Cash is still KING. ha!


See you June 12th!
Clair DeLune (author of South Carolina Blues) and your host since 1990 of Blues Moon Radio; along with her valiant co-host since 2017, Sonny Boy Red Jackson.

In the meantime, if you feel as if you need some great Blues music... don't forget our underwriters:

 

Our supporters:


As always we thank our long-time underwriters, who help bring great music to the Midlands all year around, because we could not imagine our show without their input and support:  Papa Jazz Record Shoppe, Word of Mouth Productions AND South Carolina Blues.
You can link to these orgs by clicking on the visuals...

http://www.wordofmouthproductions.org/ourstory.html
www.papajazz.com
 
 
This blog is brought to you  in part by:


South Carolina Blues
500 years of roots and blues music history in S.C.
by
Clair DeLune
on Arcadia Publishing 
 
 





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