The Center welcomes Scott Barretta, new editor of Living Blues magazine. Barretta, a native of Virginia from suburban Washington, D.C., received his master's degree in sociology from the University of Virginia. He moved to Oxford after a long stint abroad in Sweden where he edited Jefferson, a Swedish blues magazine published by the nonprofit Scandinavian Blues Association, and worked on his Ph.D. in sociology at Lund University in southern Sweden. No stranger to the media side of blues, Barretta is writing his dissertation on how blues has been presented to a white audience, comparing the means through which the music has been marketed to the largely white “revival” audience and the original black listening audience. Both his work at Jefferson and his dissertation topic prove to be solid backing for his new challenge of editing Living Blues.

Jefferson, named after Blind Lemon Jefferson, is the oldest blues magazine still in existence. Founded in 1968, the magazine attracts an audience that is mostly Swedish, yet has a large readership in Denmark and Norway as well. Barretta worked for Jefferson for three years, writing, editing, and doing layout. In the capacity of editor, he also coproduced and wrote the lengthy liner notes for I Blueskuarter (“In the Blues Quarters”), a two CD set of previously unreleased recordings of blues artists made by the Swedish Radio Corporation in Chicago in 1964. A documentary radio series structured around these recordings introduced many Swedes to the blues. An article by Barretta on these programs and the reception of blues music in Sweden more generally will appear later this year in the Black Music Research Journal. While in Sweden Barretta also wrote articles for both popular and academic publications on folk and blues music.

Barretta comes to Living Blues with a great admiration for previous editor David Nelson and the direction he led the magazine, focusing primarily on African American artists and culture. As the new editor, Barretta continues to lead the magazine in this direction, making a special effort to focus on those African American artists who play in one community all their lives, but are not featured in the most visible or commercial networks. This vision has already been borne out in Barretta’s first issue (January/February), which focused on veterans from the Kansas City, Missouri, blues scene. On January 22 Barretta traveled to Kansas City to attend a special concert commemorating the recognition to the often-overlooked Kansas City blues community. Held at the Gem Theater in the historic 18th and Vine district, the sold-out concert featured many of the artists featured in the issue, with profits from the show to be used for buying new instruments for the local Mutual Musicians Foundation.

Barretta was first introduced to blues as a teenager through friends’ records, and he also recall hearing live blues at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., at a young age. After prodding, he names as his favorite artist Lightnin’ Hopkins, yet he is also a fan of Cajun music, zydeco, bluegrass, rockabilly, and jazz. He has lectured on Southern music at the university level and enjoys being in Oxford because of the University and the Southern Studies program as well as its prime location for blues. Though a lover of travel and a touch lonesome for Swedish culture and friends, Barretta is glad to be where he is--in the middle of the South’s musical traditions.

Anne Evans