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Music Makers: Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America.

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Music Makers: Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America. Edited by Timothy Duffy. Foreword by B. B. King. Athens, GA: Hill Street Press, 2002. [xiii, 194 p. ISBN 1-58818-085-9. $35.] Illustrations, compact disc.

This book profiles the lives and music of sixty-six current or recent performers of blues and closely related types of folk and popular music. Most are from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, and almost all are African American and elderly (some now deceased). Each artist gets two or more pages, containing one or more photographs, a brief biographical blurb, and some song lyrics and an interview excerpt or both. A compact disc, bound in the back cover, features the music of some of these performers on twenty-two tracks.

This package serves as an advertisement for and summary of the work of the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF), which was established by editor Timothy Duffy in 1994. The Foundation's purpose is "to help the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern musical traditions gain recognition and meet their day-to-day needs" (p. 4). These needs include life maintenance, instrument acquisition, tour...

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