First National Blues Museum Set To Open
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They have museums for absolutely everything , so it’s hard to believe there’s never been a National Museum dedicated to the Blues genre of music and its musicians.
Although regional museums for Blues music exist, St. Louis, Missouri, will be the new home for the long-awaited First National Blues Museum.
They couldn’t have picked a more perfect place, since St. Louis was the birthplace for such greats as Chuck Berry and W.C. Handy.
According to Reuters, Museum chairman Rob Endicott says, “Depending on the final design, the national museum dedicated to the genre will be opened in St. Louis next year.”
St. Louis is amidst what is being touted as a “riverfront revitalization,” looking to draw more traffic to the downtown area; the museum should help boost those efforts as part of the $500 million project.
Endicott also said of the museum, “It’s going to be kind of space-agey. The idea is to make it a technology-driven, interactive experience. We will have the memorabilia, too, but it won’t be a museum of just artifacts.”
The museum already has a website designed to show renderings of a “Blues Lab” where visitors are able to jam (and record) with holograms of their favorite musicians!
The main page of the museum’s site says it all, “The Blues is not a melody. It’s not a chord. Or a beat. Or a rhythm. Or a tone. The Blues is a state of mind. It’s the human condition. The Blues is a way of life. And should be preserved as such.”
A Bluesweek celebration will kick off Memorial Day weekend and will be a great financial injection for the museum. Scheduled to headline will be Shemekia Copeland, Bobby Rush, Kelly Hunt, and Arthur Williams plus regional acts from St. Louis, Kansas, and Mississippi.
