A Conversation with Music Maker’s Tim Duffy – HuffPost 9.24.14

Mike Ragogna: Tim, the Music Maker Relief Foundation has been around for many years with a pretty altruistic mission. How has the organization evolved over the years?

Tim Duffy: The Music Maker Relief Foundation was founded in 1994 as a heartfelt response to a number of senior musicians in the Winston-Salem, NC, Guitar Gabriel, Willa Mae Buckner, Preston Fulp, Macavine Hayes, Mr. Q and others. These were all incredible musicians that were living in East Winston, the black section of town, that has a beautiful world of culture and art that exists behind the lines of poverty, class, education, age etc. We helped this handful of artists with their basic needs and started to humbly record their music and do what they wanted to do most, get out and perform.

If you follow any popular music and follow it back to its roots you will be standing squarely in the South. Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Gospel and more were all invented in working class communities, by people who performed on Saturday nights at community parties and Sunday morning in church. Only a few artists were ever recorded, fewer got famous; the majority just worked and performed around their homes. The musicians we work with are the grandsons and granddaughters of these musicians. Musicians may pass away, but culture never dies – it keeps on going. Popular musicians performing and creating today are still using the music created in the American South centuries ago. This music is one of the greatest cultural exports of our nation.

Music Maker artists are at least 55 years old, are rooted in a Southern Musical Tradition, and have an income of less than $18,000 ayear. The very sad part is that the majority of our artists are living on $7000 to $10,000 a year. How does an artist think about music when there is no medicine, food, or heating oil? The answer is, they can’t. Our Sustenance Program helps by making sure there are groceries, medicine, and needed expenses to ease a tiny bit of the day-to-day grind of dire poverty.

Our Musical Development Program partners with artists to help work on their repertoire, gets them a recording, gets gigs, and interviews. All artists we partner with want work; a hand up, not a hand out. We have seen great success over the years, but many artists are in their 70s to 80s when we meet them, so there is a limited window to achieve these goals. Our staff works incredibly hard to make sure every minute counts.

Our Cultural Access Program gets the music heard at performances around the world, documents our artists, and donates our photography, video and recordings to be housed in perpetuity at the Timothy Duffy Collection at The Wilson Library Southern Folklife Collection at UNC Chapel Hill. We provide educational opportunities at local schools and write grants to provide free live performance whenever we can.

What we do is truly mostly successful when we strike a real partnership with the artist. When this works and an artist comes home from a tour in Australia, has heating oil provided during a very tough winter, gets a beautiful vintage Gibson guitar in their hands, and works together with us to make it, it really is a transformative experience for everyone involved. I have seen many a couple come out to see an artist, such as Georgia Blues harmonica player Neal Pattman, and they are fussing and fighting; but once the blues gets in them they are dancing and smiling and leave together hugging up! You see music is a medicine; it is a healer. The reaction of everyone involved – from the fans, to the artists, to entire rural communities in the South – is amazing.

MR: What is your personal music history?

TD: My father Allen Duffy loved records; I grew up listening to Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger, BB King, Louis Armstrong, classical, and so much more. I picked up a guitar at 16. After hearing a very early recording of Etta Baker, I knew I wanted to move to North Carolina. I eventually did; I studied Appalachian Studies at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. From 1983 -1987, through Friends World College, I studied Swahili Tarabu music with Oud master Zein AL Abdein in Mombasa, Kenya. I have spent all my musical pursuits with great elders of musical traditions. Unfortunately 100% of the traditional musical masters I spent time with lived in poverty. When I graduated with my Master’s Degree from UNC Chapel Hill in the Curriculum of Folkore, I decided to engage with our nation’s great musical cultures in a different manner than my predecessors. To truly partner with the artists, to make a better life for them, and to make the world a better place by getting their music heard.

MR: What are some of the more successful MMRF stories?

TD: Recently, we met up with Ironing Board Sam. He was living in Rock Hill, SC, being evicted from a run down trailer; he said he was sitting around waiting to die. He was an integral part of the first African American R&B music TV show called Night Train out of Nashville. Jimi Hendrix played underneath him for a year at the Club Del Morrocco and cited Sam as an influence. Sam made records on small labels throughout the South and performed on Bourbon Street for 20 years in New Orleans. After Katrina, Sam disappeared from the music scene as he’d been forced back to Rock Hill. I had been looking for Sam and was so happy to meet him again. We moved him to Hillsborough, got him a van, glasses, dentures, clothes, an apartment, keyboard, health care. Within a year he was booked at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, and since has toured Europe, Australia, and around the country. We reissued his old albums and he started making money on these recordings for the first time, he has two new studio records out, one more on the way, and he is happy, looking forward to the next show. He loves his life and his old fans love that he is still going and he continues to share his music with new fans everyday.

Cootie Stark was a blind Piedmont Blues musician who traveled countless towns throughout the country with a tin cup at the end of his guitar for 50 years till we met up with him. He then recorded with Taj Mahal, toured 42 cities with Taj, and made a very nice living for the rest of his days; his last big project was recording and filming with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Boo Hanks was a tobacco worker when we met him at 79. At 86 he has issued two records and has toured with Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. We helped him get a trailer to live in as the one he was living in had no water or electricity. He is still performing and sounds better on the guitar every time I see him.

We have worked with just over 300 artists and each story is incredible.

MR: And Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King and others have endorsed your efforts. What has the reaction been from those you’ve helped?

TD: The celebrity musicians I have met are incredible soulful people that truly want to give back. All of them have righteous causes they have dedicated their lives to help. They are just amazing people. I was fortunate when I traveled around more than I do now; I got the privilege to meet some very interesting folks. Musicians all have friends that have had hard times, most came from humble circumstances themselves; they are glad to lend a hand.

In 1995, Taj Mahal and Eric Clapton both reached out to learn about Music Maker. I met up with Eric in New York, he loved listening to the music, hearing how the music he loved was still out their in the communities where it was born. I actually got to record a few guitar duets with him. Taj Mahal got a copy of my early compilation album, “A Living Past.” He invited me out to Los Angeles where he was recording at Ocean Way studios. At that time B.B. King was working on his “Deuces Wild” record. The Rolling Stones were working at the studio next door. Taj was so excited about Music Maker, he told me that I reconnected him to the great unknown blues musicians that he knew were out there. He introduced me to a who’s who of musicians that came by the studio to meet the Stones; we had lunch with Mick Jagger, and Taj showed Keith the folio of photographs I had. Taj has been a true friend ever since. One of the first things he did was introduce me to B.B. King, who loved Music Maker and the music. B.B. had me at every session in Los Angeles, invited me to New York and London to help him in the studio, as I was friends with the producer; he introduced Music Maker to so many stars. In New York, Bonnie Raitt learned of our mission and has been a supporter ever since; she really helped musicians we worked with when it was dire times for them. She is such a compassionate person that has done so much for the blues community, a real true activist. We love her. Folks like Jackson Browne, Pete Townshend, Derek Trucks, Dickey Betts, Ruthie Foster… all so helpful. Kenny Wayne Shepherd filmed many Music Maker artists in his film “10 Days Out.” It is a joy when famous musicians help out.

MR: How do gospel, blues, etc. survive genres evolving, changing and disappearing, you know the natural process of creativity and life?

TD: Musicians pass away, but culture never dies. Songs that used to be popular songs in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” which is now a national hymn, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” these songs define who we are. Things change. Most great folk musicians were never recorded or even performed outside of their communities. It is still the same today. Over the last 100 years there have only been a handful of folklorists that have spent years of research identifying who these people are. Many people buy into the myth that folk music dies; that is so far from the truth, if anything it grows and morphs and continues to inspire our world. The artists who continue these traditions might be hidden, but they are carrying on and Music Maker is working to find and shine a light on them.

MR: Your book We Are The Music Makers includes photographs that are sometimes more revealing than the stories, etc. What do you think of what some of those photos are saying?

TD: Seeing Willa Mae wear her python Siam for a head band, or the ethereal smile of Ironing Board Sam, or the deep motherly love of Precious Bryant with my son Lucas – these photos say, “I am somebody, I have lived a long time, seen a great deal, and the music and my image will never die.” The blues is a spirit you do not find in notes, or written on paper, it is from the heart, it tells the truth: your mishaps, good fortunes, the people in your walk of life, it will never die. There are all kinds of blues: some will make you cry, some will make you laugh, it is something that expresses the feelings inside of you and lets them go. Everyone needs music, if you do not have an instrument, play the radio. These photos say, “Listen to my music, learn more and it will make you feel better about yourself.”

MR: When you look at the music scene these days, what are your thoughts?

TD: You might never have heard about Music Maker Artists, but one day you take a turn into our world and you can get lost; there is so much music, so many different kinds, you can spend years here and never leave. This is my music scene. If an artist knows who they are, are connected deeply to their roots, are making people happy, I think it is a great thing. There are so many music scenes out there today I would think it would be impossible to know what is going on. When my father brought records home, we thought we had an idea; now I know, I will never have any idea all of what is going on musically in our world.

MR: What is your advice for new artists?

TD: The artists I have worked with performed from 13 years old ’til 75 years old when they got a break. They never let go of their music, their dreams, or ever stopped playing. My advice would be if you want to make it, you have to play all the time, play everywhere you can, make the world brighter and you will find your way.

MR: What does the future bring for Tim Duffy and for Music Makers?

TD: After 20 years we have honed our model of helping musicians make it, working with over 300 artists. For the next twenty years, we want to take this model that we have made so efficient, and use it to help even more artists. We have people calling us when an artist passes away to ask if that’s it, are there any more Country/Delta/Piedmont Blues artists out there? Is that music dead now? It is not, is always what I tell them. There are many musicians out there that need our help. We work with as many musicians as we can at any given time at Music Maker, but our approach is so time intensive because it is a whole-person approach. The same staff person who books the artists is the one an artist calls when the heat goes out, when they need to apply for aid for a medical expense, when they need to get out of their housing situation. Our staff connects artists with social services, instruments, basic needs – all while creating press packages for them, booking them, getting them publicity, recording, producing and designing their records – selling their records. These are all separate jobs. At Music Maker, we do them all – with a staff of five. So, in the next 20 years, we are seeking more funding to expand our staff so we can work with more artists; we will adapt to the changing music industry as we always have, and we hope to be able to grow so that we can find and assist even more than another 300 artists.

Our Next Generation Program is something we developed within just the last eight years; through this program we work with and mentor younger artists carrying traditional music forward into the future. Through these younger musicians, the traditions of the senior artists we work with can live on. These artists don’t receive financial support but we do provide advice and assistance in launching their careers. They have become amazing ambassadors for Music Maker. I am very proud of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dom Flemons and Leyla McCalla, the younger musicians that we work with who have been so incredibly successful. This program will continue and expand into our next 20 years as well.