Bolstered By The Blues Foundation 'Blues In The Schools' Program Carries On The Apprenticeship System

New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) - While blues musicians have long learned from their elders, a new generation will have an education of a different type: Blues in the Schools. Today, The Blues Foundation supports the Blues in the Schools efforts of numerous teachers, performers, and historians.

A two-time Blues Music Award winner and Chicago harp man, Billy Branch initiated a Blues in the Schools program in 1978. He teaches the history, styles, and musicians but also encourages students to write and perform their own material. Branch has been featured by CBS Sunday Morning, The Today Show (NBC), and CNN and is now a part of the Chicago Blues Festival. Other 2009 BMA nominees who are also involved in Blues In The Schools include Doug MacLeod, Gaye Adegbalola, and Rich Del Grosso.

Otis Taylor, who is twice nominated this year, spearheads an elementary school program called "Writing the Blues," in which students pen their own fears, disappointments, and losses. "It is amazing to see some of these nuggets, these incredible thoughts. They are often simple sentences but so real, so sad, so true, so pure," says Taylor.

A printable teacher's guide to the blues can be found here: https://www.blues.org/bits/teacher_guide.pdf