Deep in the South: A Music Maker Songbook

Taj Mahal's Music Maker Relief Foundation Picks

The Music Maker Relief Foundation's founder, Tim Duffy selects some of his favorite songs for Garden & Gun.

Tim Duffy's Picks: Garden & Gun

Listen to a couple songs from our 20th Anniversary compilation album, We Are the Music Makers!

We Are the Music Makers! Preview

Live recording of Captain Luke and Cool John Ferguson the The Hamilton, DC. 

Captain Luke and Cool John Ferguson Live @ The Hamilton

musicmaker.org

Tim Duffy has devoted the last two decades of his life to the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a non-profit that helps musicians in the South that have fallen on hard times. In late 1995, around the time the organization launched, he found himself in a New York brownstone with Eric Clapton. "Eric noticed the 1930 Martin 00-18 sitting in the corner," Duffy says. "When Eric began to play, it was spellbinding and among the most amazing musical moments of my life. I picked up my guitar and quickly tuned it a half-step up to match his and began to play some back up guitar licks that I learned from Guitar Gabriel."

The duo recorded a cover of "Mississippi blues" by Willie Brown that Duffy has recently dug up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. "Music Maker is a fabulous project," says Clapton, "real evidence that the music I have always loved is alive and well."

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Mississippi Blues feat. Eric Clapton and Timothy Duffy

Benton Flippen - Benton's Dream

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins - Back In Business

Precious Bryant - If You Don't Love Me, Baby Would You Fool Me Good

John Lee Zeigler - Going Away

Etta Baker - Railroad Bill

I'm Here - Benjamin Tehoval

Red Mama Blues - Beverly "Guitar" Watkins

Railroad Blues - J. W. Warren

The Refuge Of My Soul - Gail Ceasar

Adolphus Bell - Child Support Blues

Precious Bryant - If You Don't Love Me, Would You Fool Me Good

Neal Pattman - Shortnin' Bread

Cootie Stark - High Yellow

John Dee Holeman - Chapel Hill Boogie

Algia Mae Hinton Cook Cornbread For Your Husband

Essie Mae Brooks - Rain In Your Life

Drink Small - President Clinton Blues

Cool John Ferguson - Low Country Blues

Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - Angels Of Mercy

Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - King Bee

Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - Rainy Night In Georgia

Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - Poke Salad Annie

Captain Luke & Cool John Ferguson - Old Black Buck

Alabama Slim & Little Freddie King are both New Orleans Blues musicians. This song is their account of the day Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

Alabama Slim & Little Freddie King - The Mighty Flood

Alligator Dance from Deer Clan Singer's album "Deers R Us"

Deer Clan Singers - Alligator Dance

The blues live on because the blues give people life, not the other way around. Talk about the blues with Grammy winning singer-songwriter and composer Taj Mahal, or Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and you'll quickly understand how deeply they grasp this. So it's no surprise that their shared love of blues has created a special vinyl-only album release that's got the loose, easy feel of a porch-sitting guitar strum, sipping sweet tea on a warm summer day.

Stagger Lee

The Mighty Flood

Alabama Slim - I Got The Blues

Bishop Albert Harrison And The Gospel Tones  Take Care Of My Children

Bishop Albert Harrison And The Gospel Tones  I'm Gon Serve The Lord

LP JUNE 2020

Guitar Gabriel - Southland Blues

The Music Maker Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit, was founded to preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time.  Music Maker will give future generations access to their heritage through documentation and performance programs that build knowledge and appreciation of America’s musical traditions.

Since our founding in 1994, we have assisted and partnered with over 300 artists, issued over 150 CDs and reached over a million people with live performance in over 40 states and 17 countries around the globe.

Music Maker Foundation

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