The Music Maker Relief Foundation is not just about recognizing the achievements of those who came before, or even just preserving their music like fossils in amber. Now that they have successfully started their grant program to artists in need, their next step is to ensure the music's continued vitality and bring it to new audiences everywhere.
The Chocolate drops are one step in that direction, but Tim Duffy envisions a day when the foundation has its own facilities for recording, performing, and celebrating the people who create the music. He's well aware of how fickle fad and fashion can be, so he knows it will take a permanent effort beyond what he and his wife Denise are capable of as individuals to maintain what has been started.
Not only is the music that the foundation strives to preserve important, the work of the foundation itself must be preserved beyond this one generation for it to be successful. Initially it may have been founded with the humanitarian goal of caring for those who pioneered the Blues, but it has outgrown that impulse. Now it is fast becoming a means of preserving an important aspect of the United States' cultural heritage.
With the permanent location of Tim's realized it will be possible for the music and the people who perform it to have the means to always be a part of the nation's awareness. Nevermore will they become out of sight and out of mind or risk being relegated to the scrap heap of the forgotten.
If you have even the barest of interest in the Blues and the people who were responsible for keeping it alive over the years, in all its glorious shapes and sizes, then you may want to consider a way in which you can support the efforts of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. They are one of the best and brightest hopes for keeping the Blues alive today.
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