National Blues Museum (St. Louis)

[Louman]

This is obviously the best song Albert King ever did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhajbgPOv6c

Nice to hear AK get some love on this board, even if it's in context of a dick waving contest about St. Louis's blues cred. One of my favorite guitarists ever.

LOL!! No "dick waving"... just providing a little education. St. Louis musical history is sometimes under the radar with some people because St. Louis hasn't "dick waved" as hard as some cities. St. Louis has taken for granted that people just know. Now this museum will help the naive and visitors be enlightened.

[Louman]

Chicago Tribune: U.S. Blues museum planned for St. Louis riverfront

An excerpt from the article...............

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - A few blocks from the Mississippi River levee where a homeless W.C. Handy composed "St. Louis Blues" more than 100 years ago, the first national blues museum in the United States is taking shape.

While several regional blues museums have popped up around the country -- Memphis, Tennessee; Clarksdale, Mississippi; and Helena, Arkansas -- the St. Louis institution will be the first to tell the national story of the unique American musical form.

Organizers say it's time that St. Louis -- a city with a long musical tradition but without the high profile of Chicago, New Orleans or Memphis -- stepped up its visibility in the music world.

The National Blues Museum, which Museum chairman Rob Endicott said he hoped would open next year depending on the final design, would be a part of an ongoing public and private effort to revitalize the St. Louis riverfront.

"It's going to be kind of space-agey. The idea is to make it a technology-driven, interactive experience. We will have the memorabilia, too, but it won't be a museum of just artifacts," he said.

[Louman]

Other recent articles about the National Blues Museum.

Toronto Sun: St. Louis riverfront getting a bit more blue

The Huffington Post: First National Blues Museum Set To Open In St. Louis

Sound Spike: National Blues Museum takes shape in St. Louis

[warwickland]

Fuck, if Cleveland is going to have the Rock-n-roll museum, why not St. Louis and the Blues museum. At least it feels pretty good being in St. Louis even though we are taking fire on all sides for it...can't be a bad thing if we are being triangulated! Can't say that about Cleveland.

[warwickland]

To be fair to old St. Louis the best blues show I ever saw by faaaaaaaarrrrrr was here with some old East St. Louis blues guys who blew my mind and are probably dead now. Anything I've seen anywhere else or since has been a silly joke. I'm sure people have had similar experiences in Chicago, Kansas CIty, Memphis, Mississippi (Clarksdale...been there, wherever else) and New Orleans with jazz OR blues. But I can see it as fair to have musea here.

Another thing, damn hard for me to not think that some of them Chicago guys arent singing about the St. Louis the passed through, too. It's a bluesy city to a damn fault.

Let us have it guys, we want it.

[chingon]

Fuck, if Cleveland is going to have the Rock-n-roll museum, why not St. Louis and the Blues museum. At least it feels pretty good being in St. Louis even though we are taking fire on all sides for it...can't be a bad thing if we are being triangulated! Can't say that about Cleveland.

What's the triangle? I don't know anybody in KC who has any objection to StL building a blues museum or who thinks it should be in KC over StL.

I don't really think of StL as being any kind of blues hub or being particularly important in blues history or having an out-of-the ordinary blues scene, certainly not in the way Memphis or Chicago do, but if StL wants to build a museum it seem like bully for them. I certainly don't think people in Kansas City object.

[Downtowner]

You can have it. Talk about a niche museum...I can't imagine there would be enough visitor interest to support one. Would be like having a yodeling museum. Jazz has a hard enough time garnering enough interest and the blues is a lost and mostly forgotten genre.

[mean]

Talk about a niche museum...I can't imagine there would be enough visitor interest to support one. Would be like having a yodeling museum.

I don't think the view from backstage at the yodeling festival looks like this:

[warwickland]

Fuck, if Cleveland is going to have the Rock-n-roll museum, why not St. Louis and the Blues museum. At least it feels pretty good being in St. Louis even though we are taking fire on all sides for it...can't be a bad thing if we are being triangulated! Can't say that about Cleveland.

What's the triangle? I don't know anybody in KC who has any objection to StL building a blues museum or who thinks it should be in KC over StL.

I don't really think of StL as being any kind of blues hub or being particularly important in blues history or having an out-of-the ordinary blues scene, certainly not in the way Memphis or Chicago do, but if StL wants to build a museum it seem like bully for them. I certainly don't think people in Kansas City object.

I must have been drunk, I don't know what the blues triangulation thing was about, I knew better than that.

[warwickland]

You can have it. Talk about a niche museum...I can't imagine there would be enough visitor interest to support one. Would be like having a yodeling museum. Jazz has a hard enough time garnering enough interest and the blues is a lost and mostly forgotten genre.

For real? A yodeling museum? Try to veil your feelings a little better - it's more interesting that way.

[Louman]

Chicago loses Blues museum momentum to St. Louis
By DAVE HOEKSTRA Staff Reporter
Chicago Sun-Times
December 18, 2012 12:00AM



The National Blues Museum, scheduled to open in 2014 in downtown St. Louis — the home of rock ’n’ rollers Chuck Berry and Ike and Tina Turner ­— just got a major financial boost.

Chicago, arguably the home of the blues, is left out in the cold.

The National Blues Museum will receive a $6 million contribution from Pinnacle Entertainment and Lumiere Place Casino. The 23,000-square-foot museum, with a 2,000-square-foot theater, will showcase the blues as the foundation for modern American music.

Chicago has a lengthy history of blues, jazz and gospel museum efforts. None has come to fruition.

Over the summer, the idea of “The Blues Experience,” a blues museum-nightclub with classroom space, was introduced for the former Block 37 shopping center on State Street. It was reported that William Selonick, executive managing director in the Chicago office of the New York-based brokerage Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, was spearheading the project. This week, Selonick had a stern “no comment” regarding “The Blues Experience.”

Michelle Boone, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, said the city remains committed to the blues.

“From the city’s perspective, 2013 is going to be the 30th anniversary for the blues festival,” Boone said. “We want to use that as a platform to do outreach to the world about Chicago blues in a way we haven’t done before.”

The St. Louis location is similar to what Chicago is planning for a Motor Row (Music Row) area centering around the historic Chess Records site, a block away from McCormick Place. National Blues Museum advisors include Patrick Gallagher of Gallagher & Associates, which has provided museum exhibition and design and master planning for the B.B. King Museum in Mississippi and the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, and Bob Santelli, a blues author and historian who is executive director of the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live.

[Louman]

Yesterday (04/02/16), the first major museum in the Midwest and United States dedicated to Blues music opened in an historic building in downtown St Louis on Washington Avenue. The National Blues Museum opened its doors in a 23,000 square foot facility that includes state-of-the-art exhibits chronicling Blues music history from its roots in Africa to this current day in America. One exhibit allows visitors to create their own Blues song.

The museum also features a traveling exhibit gallery, video galleries, a small live concert venue and a BBQ restaurant. Admission is $15 for adults, extra for a tour guide. The tour lasts nearly two hours.

The St. Louis mayor, museum supporters and founders, founding executive director Dion Brown, the Normandy High School marching band, Blues musicians and other dignitaries etc. were on hand to open the historic museum.

A few St. Louis Blues Music Facts
1. Ragtime's Scott Joplin composed the rag, "The Entertainer" and other famous rags in St. Louis. Ragtime was a predecessor to the Blues.
2. W.C. Handy, the Father of the Blues, composed the "St. Louis Blues" on St. Louis' riverfront levee. "St. Louis Blues" is one of the most recorded blues songs ever. It was also one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song.
3. Albert King and Lil' Milton recorded with St. Louis' Bobbin Records before moving on to Chess or Stax Records. King's first national hit, "Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong" was on the Bobbin/King label.

Top blade sign designed to look like a harmonica.
























St. Louis'-own Chuck Berry
















Traveling Exhibit Gallery, columns intentionally left raw to illustrate the rawness of Blues music.

[grovester]

Cool, look forward to checking it out,great pix.

[Louman]

What's funny about this is KC actually has a larger and more prolific blues scene now than STL has.

Interesting. By whose metrics?

[brewcrew1000]

What's funny about this is KC actually has a larger and more prolific blues scene now than STL has.

I actually think the Jazz musuem here sucks ball, all it is is a bunch of headphones. This looks like an actual museum.

[chingon]

What's funny about this is KC actually has a larger and more prolific blues scene now than STL has.

Interesting. By whose metrics?

Dr. Hugh Gifsashitz, PsyD

[Louman]

Just for the record.........I have been laughing MAO ever since I've read your metric sources. None of them are scientific - at all.

So let's just play around for a minute.

1. Apparently, KC Blues Society does a better job of keeping their website up-to-date. Congratulations!
2. Before the St. Louis Blues Society, the St. Louis Musician's Association handled most music matters in St. Louis. It's been around since 1862.
3. Even still, the St. Louis Blues Society was founded established in 1984 so it's not like KC's was established light years ahead. But even so, good for KC.
4. The list of your St. Louis Blues music venues is what had me laughing the most. Many, many of them were not on the list.
5. Check out St. Louis Bands. It's a longggg list. Many of them are Blues-playing bands.
6. And St. Louis has bluesy Hip Hop even. See: St. Louis "Blues" Bounce Hip Hop.

Off the top of my head, I noticed these were not on your list. And most of them are just in the city. LOL!

Blue’s City Deli
Hard Rock Café – St. Louis
Landry’s @ Union Station
Big Daddy's Bar & Grill - Soulard
Ameristar Casino St. Charles
Missouri Bar & Grill
Sweetie Pie’s - Mangrove
Sweetie Pie’s - Upper Crust (Grand Center)
Lumiere Place Casino & Hotel
J & C BBQ and Blues
Pappy's Smokehouse

And, let's go with YELP. I did a general search on "live blues music" then just to see what the results would yield, I searched "live jazz music", "live hip-hop music" and "live country music" for each region.

The results came back in pages.

Blues
STL (37 Pages)
KC (29 Pages)

Jazz
KC (8 Pages)
STL (8 Pages)

Hip Hop
STL (11 Pages)
KC (6 Pages)

Country
STL (51 Pages)
KC (45 Pages)

[Louman]

St. Louis has multiple Blues festivals per year, but it has THREE major Blues Festivals.

This year the region will have:

21st Big Muddy Blues Festival
15th Webster Jazz & Blues Festival
11th Annual St. Louis Blues Festival

**Fest300 Magazine: THE 12 POSITIVELY BEST BLUES FESTIVALS IN NORTH AMERICA**

Big Muddy Blues Festival

From the magazine:

St. Louis has its own unique blues sound, sometimes referred to as the “Saint Louis Shuffle,” which is typically more piano-based and has a very ragtime jump to it. It’s also home to blues and R&B masters like Chuck Berry, known for songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and other energetic R&B tunes that helped kickstart rock n' roll as we know it. The family friendly Big Muddy Blues Fest is held in Downtown St. Louis on Laclede's Landing every September.

[mean]

Come on guys, you're better than this.

[aknowledgeableperson]

What's funny about this is KC actually has a larger and more prolific blues scene now than STL has.

Yes but St. Louis has a hockey club named St. Louis Blues. Guess that may be the "Trump" card.