Jimmy “Duck” Holmes plays his guitar in front of the Blue Front Café in Bentonia, Miss. JACKSON, Miss. — Blues is inspired by place — the railroads, fields and slaughterhouses where the musicians once ...

In this Dec. 16, 2013 photograph, Chevonne Dixon, a fourth grade teacher at Tunica Elementary School in Tunica, Miss., speaks to the students about the elements of their blues song in class. Dixon ...

Jimmy Holmes is the last in a line of music legends as he seeks to keep a singular American art form thriving Jim Beaugez Photographs by Timothy Ivy The worn hands and nubby fingernails of Bentonia, ...

GREENVILLE, Miss. — I recently moved to the heart and soul of the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues. Signs of this rich music heritage are all around me in this part of the state — the ...

Blues piano legend Pinetop Perkins will be accompanied by the Willie “Big-Eyes” Smith Band, with Smith on the harmonica, during an engagement at Seattle’s Jazz Alley. Perkins, one of the last great ...

Many towns and cities along the Blues Trail have planned festivals, exhibitions and live music to mark the 100th birthday of the homegrown musical legend. The seemingly endless cotton fields and ...

As the National Museum of African American Music opens its doors, journalists from the USA TODAY Network explore the stories, places and people who helped make music what it is today in our expansive ...