Deep In the South: A Music Maker Songbook will take music fans on a musical road trip through the South. The book, which comes with an accompanying nineteen-track CD, will be released September 20 by Music Maker Foundation, encompassing guitar tablature for 27 songs, numerous photographs by Music Maker executive director and renowned photographer Tim Duffy, and eighteen artist stories.
A download code will come with the book for all 27 songs. Songs come from the repertoires of: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient Etta Baker, whom NPR called “one of America’s most influential guitarists… credited with helping to spark the folk music revival of the 1960s”; Blues Hall of Famer and Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner Taj Mahal; inspiration for the founding of Music Maker Foundation, Guitar Gabriel; masterful New Orleans blues fixture Alabama Slim; Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, veteran of the bands of James Brown, B.B. King, and Ray Charles; New Orleans legend Little Freddie King, who has played every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival but the first; and others. The artist stories were written by Duffy and acclaimed journalist Chuck Reece.
Guitar Gabriel, who contributed an introduction to the book assembled posthumously, said, “I have played so much guitar it could make your ass hurt. I’m good but I don’t brag about it.”
Tablature was transcribed by acclaimed New England guitar teacher and Berklee College of Music alum Earle Pughe, who has studied with Lou Arnold, Roswell Rudd, Chuck Winfield and Bill Mosely, and Charlie Banacos.
Reece has told a wide variety of Southern stories, starting at age fifteen in his hometown of Ellijay, GA, and most recently as founding editor-in-chief of The Bitter Southerner, a publication he launched in 2013 that eventually gathered hundreds of thousands of devoted readers around the world. His obsession with music stretches from childhood memories of seeing his father sing in gospel quartets through living as a fan in two all-time great music scenes and now to delving into the world of Music Maker.
Music Maker meets the day-to-day needs of the artists who create traditional American music, ensures their voices are heard, and gives all people access to our nation’s hidden musical treasures. Since 1994, they have served over 500 musicians whose work spans the entire history of American music: blues, gospel, folk, singer-songwriter, Appalachian string band and Native American. Their primary focus is on musicians 55 years and older, and they provide financial grants only to those making less than $25,000 per year, or who face a crisis. They also work with some emerging musicians, often in collaboration with senior artists who want to carry their traditions forward.
Accompanying CD Tracklisting:
One Dime Blues – Etta Baker
Baby Please Don’t Go – Little Freddie King
My Creole Belle – Taj Mahal
Back In Business – Beverly “Guitar” Watkins
Banks of the Ohio – Preston Fulp
Ain’t Gonna Let No Woman – Guitar Gabriel
Black Mattie – Robert “Wolfman” Belfour
The Old Rugged Cross – Carl Rutherford
Chapel Hill Boogie – John Dee Holeman
Black Dog Blues – Ben Payton
44 Blues – Benjamin Tehoval
Fannie Mae – Alabama Slim
Chicken Raid – Frank Edwards
Guitar Woman Blues – Gail Caesar
Bear and Wildcat Blues – Jeffrey Scott
Pickin’ Cotton Blues – Boo Hanks
Georgia Buck – Precious Bryant
Cool Driver Blues – Harvey Dalton Arnold
Dew Drop – Etta Baker
Accompanying Download Tracklist:
Mint Julep – Etta Baker
Dew Drop – Etta Baker
One Dime Blues – Etta Baker
I Get The Blues When It Rains – Etta Baker
Going To The Race Track – Etta Baker
My Creole Belle – Taj Mahal
Betty and De Prit – Guitar Gabriel
Ain’t Gonna Let No Woman – Guitar Gabriel
Down on the Farm – Guitar Gabriel
Southland Blues – Guitar Gabriel
Banks of the Ohio – Preston Fulp
Georgia Buck – Precious Bryant
Picking Cotton Blues – Boo Hanks
Guitar Woman Blues – Gail Ceasar
44 Blues – Benjamin Tehoval
Chapel Hill Boogie – John Dee Holeman
Shotgun Blues – John Dee Holeman
My Baby Is A Country Girl – John Dee Holeman
Black Dog Blues – Ben Payton
The Old Rugged Cross – Carl Rutherford
Bear and Wildcat Blues – Jeffrey Scott
Cool Driver Blues – Harvey Dalton Arnold
Fannie Mae – Alabama Slim
Back in Business – Beverly “Guitar” Watkins
Chicken Raid – Frank Edwards
Black Mattie – Robert “Wolfman” Belfour
Baby Please Don’t Go – Little Freddie King
The book hits newsstands on September 20th, just in time for holiday gift-giving.
