Living Blues Celebrates 25th Year

This year marks the 25th anniversary for Living Blues, the bimonthly magazine of the African American blues tradition published by the Center. The focus of the 160-page anniversary issue is the evolution of the music through the new generation of blues singers.

"We're trying to dispel the notion that African American blues music is a declining tradition. On the contrary, it s growing and expanding. The blues scene is changing in some ways, but it remains true to the original art form," says David Nelson, editor of Living Blues since 1992.

Likewise, Living Blues has remained true to its original editorial mission. Begun in 1970 by a group of blues enthusiasts in Chicago, the magazine has grown with the popularity of the music but has never lost sight of its beginning purpose, which was to cover the contemporary African American blues scene. Jim O'Neal, one of the original founders of the magazine, laughs about how he and other blues fanatics in Chicago during the 1970s were reading European blues magazines to find out what was happening in Chicago.

"I am from Mississippi, but I didn't really find out what blues was until I got to Chicago. I was introduced to the blues through these British magazines which were really hip to what the real thing was. They got me hooked," says O'Neal, who now lives in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and owns his own Rooster Blues record label dedicated to recording Mississippi blues musicians. O'Neal and seven of his friends in Chicago started the magazine out of their frustration for not having a local source for blues information. Living Blues was chosen as the name of the magazine since O'Neal and the other owners wanted to present the blues as a living tradition. Blues had been written about as history, but this group saw it as being perpetual. Living Blues gleaned its reputation from a lively, comprehensive coverage of the emerging blues scene and its long, in-depth interviews with both well-known bluesmen and lesser-known figures.

In 1983, O'Neal and the other founding editor, Amy van Singel, donated the publication rights for Living Blues and the magazine's collection of blues memorabilia to the Center. David Nelson, the magazine's current editor, has made a conscious effort to bring back the style of the original magazine with its straight-shooting interviews. "Not a lot of magazines do interviews like the ones we do," he says. "We like for musicians to tell their stories in their own words. That sometimes means that the interviews are long and the type is small, but the response from our readers has been overwhelmingly positive."

Jennifer Lanston, David Nelson, and Susan Lee

Living Blues has an international circulation of about 20,000. "Some of our readers live thousands of miles from blues worlds like the Mississippi Delta and Chicago but follow with great care the lives and careers of their heroes and heroines through Living Blues," says Bill Ferris, director of the Center. "They bring to the magazine a unique understanding of the music we all agree is the most influential music of our century."

"Our international readers are quite knowledgeable about the blues," adds Nelson. "If we happen to make a mistake in our content, our European readers, especially, notice even the most obscure error in details."

Regarded as indispensable by blues enthusiasts and promoters, Living Blues has been just as important to the blues artists. "A lot of artists who haven t been featured anywhere else begin to make appearances at festivals after an article in the magazine. We have had people comment that being featured in Living Blues has made a big impact on where they are able to play," says Nelson. One bluesman, Jimmy Johnson, even wrote lyrics about the magazine's appeal: "The cover of Living Blues is where I want to be." O'Neal adds, "Commercially, the blues is a small field in music with low economics. The bluesmen need and deserve the attention Living Blues provides them."

Today, the bimonthly magazine has two staff members in addition to the editor: Susan B. Lee, art director, and Jennifer Langston, production manager. In 1994 the magazine received an Ozzie Award for Best Magazine Redesign, and articles on its 25th anniversary have been featured in national media. "Living Blues has continued to prosper and grow because it has stuck to its mission," said Peter Aschoff, one of the magazine s contributing writers and an instructor of Anthropology and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. "You can't define the blues as a music based on 12 bars and 3 chord changes with an AAB rhyme scheme. It has to also be defined in terms of its cultural context. Living Blues does that better than anyone. "

Bluesman B. B. King, recently in Oxford, is pictured here with the 25th anniversary issue of Living Blues. About it he said: "For a quarter of a century, Living Blues has been my number one source for blues news, reviews, and in-depth stories. Each issue celebrates the lives of musicians who have made the blues America's greatest music."

Looking ahead, the editor of the magazine wants to remain on the forefront of new developments in the blues. "Younger artists are taking blues in new directions, incorporating elements of rap and reggae," says Nelson. "Others are remaining true to traditional African American blues. There are artists playing both extremes with a whole lot of good artists somewhere in the middle." With such a rich future of blues musicians, Living Blues will have plenty to cover for another 25 years.

Christy Keirn

Note: On May 5, Living Blues was awarded the Blue's Foundation's "Keeping The Blues Alive Award" for Print Media, in honor of the magazine's 25th anniversary issue.

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