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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Museum celebrates music rooted in Mississippi River
By Todd Dvorak
Associated Press
DAVENPORT, Iowa - A 1929 film clip of country music legend Jimmie Rogers. Scratchy recordings of Delta blues king Robert Johnson. Images of folk icon Bob Dylan's early performances in Twin Cities cafes.
A new museum features these and thousands of other exhibits showing how the musical styles of America's Heartland are woven over and around the same, watery thread: the Mississippi River.
The River Music Experience celebrates the musicians and cities up and down the mighty river that helped shape and reinvent jazz, country, blues, rock 'n' roll and more.
While Davenport may lack the rich musical resume of such hubs as New Orleans or Memphis, officials say this eastern Iowa river town is a perfect place to preserve the heritage of American roots music.
For decades, Davenport was a major port for the steamboats and barges that ferried goods, tourists and musicians - including Louis Armstrong, Davy Dodds and Johnny St. Cyr - up and down the river.
It's the birthplace of jazz pioneer Bix Beiderbecke, celebrated annually with the city's popular Bix Beiderbecke Festival. And in recent decades, the town has become a must-stop for musicians traveling the fabled "Blues Highway," U.S. 61.
"Certainly when you look at the history of music along the river, there are several communities where phenomenal talent and ideas have emerged," said Connie Gibbons, the museum's executive director.
The museum's exhibits are spread across 31,000 square feet on the renovated second floor of the Redstone Building, a historic, four-story brick structure in the heart of the city's downtown riverfront district.
The museum's centerpiece is an 81-foot-long multimedia display divided into six categories, each designed to represent a different stop on a musical journey along the river.
Using audio, video and text, The River Wall traces the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the blues, gospel and work songs that originated in the Mississippi Delta, the country and blues unique to Memphis and the influences that created the punk rock scene in Minneapolis in the late 1970s.
By pointing a wand at icons on screen and clicking a button, visitors can call up hundreds of video and audio files, such as footage of New Orleans jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton or recordings made at the Memphis studios that launched the careers of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and B.B. King.
Visitors can access a menu featuring more than 300 biographies of musicians and songwriters, or download thousands of audio files in the permanent exhibit area.
Future plans include finishing a recording studio in the basement, adding more audio and video files, hosting concerts and classes, and exploring the idea of syndicated radio programming.
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| polksalad69 |
TY. Never been to their blues fest. |
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CHAT
ROOM aka THE FUN HOUSE] [
RESTROOMS]