WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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[Music]
the national medal for Museum and

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Library Services is the nation's highest
honor for libraries and museums that are

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serving their communities in exceptional
ways delta blues Museum executive

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director Shelley Ritter and Community
member Travis Calvin traveled to

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Washington from Clarkdale Mississippi to
receive the national medal and spoke to

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imls about how the museum impacts the
community well the delta blues Museum

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museum is Mississippi's oldest Music
Museum we were founded in

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1979 as part of the Carnegie Public
Library and our mission is really to

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honor the artist uh from the Delta and
their musical contributions to really

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Global Music they most of them all came
from Clarkdale uh the delta blues Museum

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serves really two distinct communities
we serve our local community and then we

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serve the global Blues Community because
we have a really strong International

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visitorship from people who are in
Europe and they know the blues maybe

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through the Rolling Stones maybe through
the Beetles and then they trace it back

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to John Lee Hooker Muddy Waters Sun
house Robert Johnson and they come to

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Clarksdale on a musical P pilgrimage of
sorts to really find the roots and

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that's what our Muse is about uh the
Arts and education program is an

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afternoon program offered at the delta
blues Museum 4 days a week the museum

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owns all the instruments guitars
keyboards drums bass and we employ local

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Blues musicians to teach the classes and
you learn to play music by playing

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music I started at the museum at the age
of eight um with with my twin brother

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and older sisters it was our itive
instead of being outside in a rough

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neighborhood uh there was lots of gang
violets Chuck and alcohol abuse in my

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neighborhood so my parents wanted me to
do something constructive with my time

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my brother played drums and later bass
guitar uh this is my twin brother uh my

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Middle Brother played piano uh my twin
sisters they both sang we had a a little

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band uh we were called Blues Prodigy um
with a few more other students inside

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the program uh we actually won the first
Blues kids handy

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Awards although a lot of Arts has come
from our community it's not really an

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easily accessible thriving part of our
community except at the Museum so we

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bring things
in we teach uh students how to sing and

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play Blues and then the delta blues
Museum

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band will perform at local festivals and
we've performed at at the Chicago Blues

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Festival and they even performed at the
White House a few years

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ago I began assisting teaching when I
was about 10th grade my job was to

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mainly assist the the head instructors
um I would go around and help and make

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sure everyone was actually learning
Travis was believe it or not kind of

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shy um very talented but very um almost
introverted to a degree and he we

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employed him as a
teacher in the classroom and he's we

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started seeing him Blossom a little bit
more and he moved on then the next thing

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I know Trent and Travis or co- valid
victorians at the community college

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After High School and after the Del Del
Blues Museum um I decided to pursue a

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career in music in well in the music
industry uh I'm grad I just graduated

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from Dela State University
uh with a Bachelor of Science in music

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industry studies uh with a concentration
in audio engineering and music

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business I have no idea where I'll be
without the museum uh probably just

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another statistic just uh one of my
neighborhood bombs or something like

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that just sitting around doing nothing
with my life playing video

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games Travis is a stellar example of
what the program can be we hope that

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through travis' success that we can
connect and reach an even broader

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audience as we bring up students and
Foster these talents and they take them

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you know to other levels beyond the
museum I think it's important to pass on

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the story of the delta blues because it
is such an indigenous art form and just

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what these early musicians who really
had nothing but yet they

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still had this incredible talent that
they man to nurture and

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Foster and celebrate and it's
just just being able to know that you

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you can take nothing and build a career
out of it that people enjoy and that is

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has
influenced you know people all over the

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world is is really incredible and we
need to step back and look at that and

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admire that and and not focus on what we
don't have but look at what we do have

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and I think music and the Arts
really that's what they're about