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| Living Blues (magazine) | |
|---|---|
| Title | Living Blues |
| Category | Music magazine |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Publisher | Center for the Study of Southern Culture |
| Firstdate | 1970 |
| Country | United States |
| Based | Oxford, Mississippi |
| Language | English |
Living Blues (magazine) is a quarterly American periodical dedicated to the history, culture, and contemporary scene of blues music. Founded in 1970, the magazine has chronicled artists, record labels, venues, festivals, and regional scenes across the United States, offering reportage, interviews, reviews, and archival research. Over five decades it has connected scenes associated with Chicago blues, Delta blues, Memphis blues, Louisiana blues, and international markets including United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
Living Blues traces its origins to 1970 when a group of enthusiasts and researchers in Chicago, Illinois launched a newsletter amid renewed interest in performers linked to Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and revivalists from the British blues boom such as Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and Fleetwood Mac. Early coverage emphasized fieldwork and oral history practices associated with scholars connected to institutions like the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress, while documenting recording activity from labels including Chess Records, Sun Records, Vee-Jay Records, Delmark Records, and Alligator Records. In the 1980s the magazine expanded editorially and institutionally, relocating operations and affiliating with the University of Mississippi and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, reflecting ties to regional archives, documentary filmmakers, and scholars of figures such as W.C. Handy, Robert Johnson, Son House, Skip James, and Charley Patton.
Published quarterly by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, the magazine operates with an editorial board that has included music journalists, ethnomusicologists, and archivists who have worked alongside scholars from the University of Chicago, Tulane University, Indiana University, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Editors and contributors have often been active in festivals and institutions such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Chicago Blues Festival, and the King Biscuit Blues Festival. The magazine maintains relationships with organizations including Living Blues Foundation, regional historical societies, and record companies like Rhino Records and Fat Possum Records for reissue projects and liner-note scholarship.
Each issue combines long-form journalism, archival photo essays, discographies, record reviews, and obituaries focusing on performers such as Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Etta James, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Pinetop Perkins, Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Reed, R.L. Burnside, Junior Wells, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Big Mama Thornton, Elmore James, Albert King, Freddie King, Otis Rush, Gatemouth Brown, John Hammond, Paul Butterfield, Mavis Staples, Shemekia Copeland, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, and Rory Gallagher. Regular columns address festival reports from events like South by Southwest, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and Glastonbury Festival, while features examine archival collections at the American Folklife Center, field recordings by Alan Lomax, and the business histories of labels such as Stax Records and Motown. The magazine also publishes thematic issues on topics ranging from the role of producers like Sam Phillips to regional styles tied to Clarksdale, Mississippi, Beale Street, Chicago's South Side, and Austin, Texas.
Contributors have included prominent critics, historians, and musicians: Peter Guralnick, Robert Palmer (music critic), Greil Marcus, Bill Dahl, Tony Russell, David Ritz, Ralph Peer, Alan Lomax (in archival material), Scott Dirks, Harrison Scott Salat, Ted Gioia, J. L. Williams, Robert Santelli, and practitioners such as Buddy Guy, Keb' Mo'', Etta Baker, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke (archival), Ike & Tina Turner (archival), Pinetop Perkins, Robert Johnson (archival scholarship), Eddie "Guitar" Burns, Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters (archival), Howlin' Wolf (archival), Shemekia Copeland, Marcia Ball, Anson Funderburgh, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Big Joe Turner, R.L. Burnside, John Lee Hooker (archival), Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Gary Moore, and contemporary voices like Chris Thomas King and Cedric Burnside. The magazine's oral histories and interviews have been cited by museums including the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the Blues Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Scholars and critics credit the magazine with sustaining scholarly and popular interest in blues, influencing museum exhibitions, academic courses at institutions like Berklee College of Music and New York University, and documentary films produced by companies connected to PBS and BBC. Its reporting has shaped reissue liner notes for labels such as Chess Records reissues, Blind Lemon Jefferson collections, and projects by Document Records and Revenant Records, while informing preservation work at the Mississippi Blues Trail and the National Recording Registry. Reviews in mainstream outlets including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and NPR have acknowledged the magazine's archival rigor and artist-centered perspective.
The magazine and its contributors have received multiple honors including acknowledgments from the Blues Foundation, inductions and citations in the Blues Hall of Fame, and awards for journalism from organizations like the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. Individual writers have been finalists and winners of prizes affiliated with the American Association of Independent Music and received fellowships from institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress grants for oral-history projects.
Category:Music magazines published in the United States Category:Magazines established in 1970 Category:Blues music publications