[Music] the national medal for Museum and
Library Services is the nation's highest honor for libraries and museums that are
serving their communities in exceptional ways delta blues Museum executive
director Shelley Ritter and Community member Travis Calvin traveled to
Washington from Clarkdale Mississippi to receive the national medal and spoke to
imls about how the museum impacts the community well the delta blues Museum
museum is Mississippi's oldest Music Museum we were founded in
1979 as part of the Carnegie Public Library and our mission is really to
honor the artist uh from the Delta and their musical contributions to really
Global Music they most of them all came from Clarkdale uh the delta blues Museum
serves really two distinct communities we serve our local community and then we
serve the global Blues Community because we have a really strong International
visitorship from people who are in Europe and they know the blues maybe
through the Rolling Stones maybe through the Beetles and then they trace it back
to John Lee Hooker Muddy Waters Sun house Robert Johnson and they come to
Clarksdale on a musical P pilgrimage of sorts to really find the roots and
that's what our Muse is about uh the Arts and education program is an
afternoon program offered at the delta blues Museum 4 days a week the museum
owns all the instruments guitars keyboards drums bass and we employ local
Blues musicians to teach the classes and you learn to play music by playing
music I started at the museum at the age of eight um with with my twin brother
and older sisters it was our itive instead of being outside in a rough
neighborhood uh there was lots of gang violets Chuck and alcohol abuse in my
neighborhood so my parents wanted me to do something constructive with my time
my brother played drums and later bass guitar uh this is my twin brother uh my
Middle Brother played piano uh my twin sisters they both sang we had a a little
band uh we were called Blues Prodigy um with a few more other students inside
the program uh we actually won the first Blues kids handy
Awards although a lot of Arts has come from our community it's not really an
easily accessible thriving part of our community except at the Museum so we
bring things in we teach uh students how to sing and
play Blues and then the delta blues Museum
band will perform at local festivals and we've performed at at the Chicago Blues
Festival and they even performed at the White House a few years
ago I began assisting teaching when I was about 10th grade my job was to
mainly assist the the head instructors um I would go around and help and make
sure everyone was actually learning Travis was believe it or not kind of
shy um very talented but very um almost introverted to a degree and he we
employed him as a teacher in the classroom and he's we
started seeing him Blossom a little bit more and he moved on then the next thing
I know Trent and Travis or co- valid victorians at the community college
After High School and after the Del Del Blues Museum um I decided to pursue a
career in music in well in the music industry uh I'm grad I just graduated
from Dela State University uh with a Bachelor of Science in music
industry studies uh with a concentration in audio engineering and music
business I have no idea where I'll be without the museum uh probably just
another statistic just uh one of my neighborhood bombs or something like
that just sitting around doing nothing with my life playing video
games Travis is a stellar example of what the program can be we hope that
through travis' success that we can connect and reach an even broader
audience as we bring up students and Foster these talents and they take them
you know to other levels beyond the museum I think it's important to pass on
the story of the delta blues because it is such an indigenous art form and just
what these early musicians who really had nothing but yet they
still had this incredible talent that they man to nurture and
Foster and celebrate and it's just just being able to know that you
you can take nothing and build a career out of it that people enjoy and that is
has influenced you know people all over the
world is is really incredible and we need to step back and look at that and
admire that and and not focus on what we don't have but look at what we do have
and I think music and the Arts really that's what they're about