Living the blues

Students travel to the American south to experience the vibrant culture and living history of roots music – through people, places, and performance.

Field trip

A visit to the Delta Blues Museum further enhanced the experience.
Location, location, location

Performance venues take many forms, including the porch of an old general store.
Dancing in the streets

Live performance happens anywhere and everywhere.
Music lessons

Meeting and performing with local musicians brought the blues to life.
The damage done

Students toured areas that still bear scars of Hurricane Katrina.
Day of service

Kate Outerbridge and Mark Clague finish drywalling in the basement of a home flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The joy of song

SMTD doctoral student Annie Jeng leads Sacred Harp Singing at the Grace Chapel Primitive Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn.
Morning jam

Mark Dulchavsky and Bruce Conforth welcome the day with an impromptu jam session at the Shack Up Inn.
Making music

Students fashioned instruments out of cigar boxes, wood, and wire.
Baptist Town

Sylvester Hoover, of Delta Blues Legend Tours in Greenwood, Miss., shows the group around the Baptist Town neighborhood, with its still-standing sharecropper shacks.
Honoring the legends

Students played at the gravesites of several blues legends.