The National Blues Museum was one of ninety-one museums, libraries, and cultural or tribal organizations that used their position as trusted community partners to help build vaccine confidence in their communities as part of Community for Immunity. From hosting vaccine clinics to fighting misinformation, each award winner has taken their own tailored approach through this work. In this post, Erin Simon, deputy director of the National Blues Museum, shares how she and her museum’s staff connected addressing a public health crisis with their mission, posing the issue of bringing live music back to their community.
–Vida Mikalcius, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, American Association of Museums
Since its inception, the National Blues Museum (NBM) has viewed the preservation of the historical legacy of blues music as going hand in hand with advocating for the blues musicians of today. This philosophy informs every aspect of our programming as a museum and music venue, and was the driving force behind our involvement in the Immunity Community. We recognize that throughout the centuries-old history of the blues, hard-working musicians have always kept the music and its community thriving. Our relationship with local musicians forms the museum’s most significant connection to our community in St. Louis. Louis, Missouri. So when battling the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Blues Museum focused its programming on serving the community and supporting local musicians.
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The impact of COVID-19 on the music industry has hit the blues world particularly hard. In an era dominated by unfair music streaming models, musicians of all stripes need income from live music and touring to survive. However, blues music in particular has always had a distinctly communal role, providing the soundtrack for evenings of celebration and fellowship in clubs, venues and community events around the world. For musicians who dedicate their time and resources to providing this joy to audiences, the pandemic has threatened their vocation and meaning.
Faced with this reality, the National Blues Museum made working as a safe place for music a priority and set the pace for other venues in the St. Louis area. Louis. The museum launched Blues on the Block, a free outdoor concert series in the summer of 2020 for musicians to safely reach their audiences. As soon as the city government of St. Louis issued permits to close the intersection perpendicular to the museum every Saturday, we were able to bring affordable, family-friendly outdoor performances to the streets of downtown St. Louis. Louis, which are easy to reach by public transport. As the pandemic progressed, the National Blues Museum was one of the first local venues to require vaccination cards at concerts. Our audience members encouraged these measures, and the museum continues to seek guidance from its community when taking safety measures and programming events.
When the opportunity arose to be part of the Immunity Community, the National Blues Museum saw it as the perfect opportunity to advance our goals for the future of live music and a healthy entertainment ecosystem in the United States. As part of our project, we launched multiple initiatives to promote vaccination and educate ourselves and our audience about the connection between live music and public health.
One of those initiatives was the creation of Pandemic Blues, an exhibition that explores how the second pandemic shook the world of music. More than a hundred years ago, the 1918 influenza pandemic dramatically affected the modernization, urbanization of the United States, and the new culture of public entertainment it supported. At the same time, the blues and other styles of African American music became prominent in popular culture, despite the systemic violence black communities faced across the country following Reconstruction and Jim Crow segregation. Blues musicians even wrote songs about the flu, and “1919 Influenza Blues” entered the blues repertoire and spread across the country during the 1920s and 1930s:
“It was nineteen nineteen;
With what the doctor called the flu.
Death was creeping all over the air,
And the moaning of the rich must have been sad.
Well that was God’s almighty plan,
He killed the rich, killed the poor,
It will kill just a little more,
If you don’t turn away in shame.”
The parallels between the 1918 pandemic and COVID-19 are striking, especially in the music world. Much like 2020, the way Americans listened to music was changing rapidly in 1918. Radio was not yet commercially available, and recorded music—played on phonographs and “Talking Machines”—was a brand new invention. Sheet music was the industry’s primary medium, reflecting a simple truth that seems startling now: if you heard music before 1918, it was most likely played live by a musician. As in 2020, live music and entertainment have come to a standstill across the United States, putting thousands of people out of work. Musicians have faced heartbreak in their personal lives as well. The seminal blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson—whose innovative style and recordings with Louis Armstrong inspired generations of musicians—returned from a European tour to discover that both his parents and eight of his nine siblings had died of the flu.
Despite major setbacks, the music world has recovered from the flu, and research into the progress made in the fight against infectious diseases during the twentieth century has given us hope for the future of music in the 2020s. Before and during the 1918 pandemic, infectious diseases played a much more significant role in American life than they do today. Between 1900 and 1910, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, and pneumonia (often caused by influenza) accounted for about 50 percent of all deaths among Americans ages 5 to 44. By the 1970s, infectious diseases accounted for only 3 percent of deaths in this age group. Vaccination has been a leading factor in this tremendous progress, shedding light on how widespread the rate of vaccination against COVID-19 is necessary for a thriving music ecosystem.
Building on the research and curatorial work of Pandemic Blues, another National Blues Museum Immunity Community initiative leveraged our capacity as a music venue and arts presenter. To encourage vaccinations and raise awareness of the safe public health basics professional musicians need for their craft, the museum hosted a free outdoor concert and a museum open house for children where community members could get vaccinated against COVID-19. In partnership with Affinia Healthcare and the Regional Health Commission of St. Louis, the museum provided free vaccinations for children and adults. At the Open Days, children had opportunities for art and music making, and families could visit the museum for free. With the recently opened Pandemic Blues exhibit, the event gave members of the community the opportunity to attend the exhibit and listen to quality live music, kicking off the summer season of free music in downtown St. Louis.
Our Communities for Immunity event and other free concerts hosted by the National Blues Museum reflect how a healthy music and entertainment ecosystem can bring people together for positive impact. As an oral tradition, blues music is a medium through which communities can reflect, share their experiences, and feel a cathartic release of joy. These features align with the National Blues Museum’s mission within its own community and make our museum a space where residents of St. Louisa from different backgrounds can have affirmative interactions with each other.
These same qualities of music have allowed us to spread valuable vaccination information within the Immunity Community. In fact, there is literature that supports this theory. Researching performers who promoted polio vaccination in The Gambia, ethnomusicologist Bonnie McConnell testified that “more than simply conveying information, musical participation can engage people socially and emotionally, creating the conditions necessary for deeper levels of engagement”. By framing their educational efforts through music, these performers showed McConnell how “the integration of unfamiliar information into familiar participatory forms allows people to establish a sense of coherence and meaning.” By holding vaccination events around a participatory form of blues music, the National Blues Museum has harnessed music’s ability to unite groups through emotion and rhythm to work toward this common goal.
The National Blues Museum’s community-informed approach to presenting music is part of what has made our program so valued by local audiences. Celebrating locally significant black music styles such as blues, R&B and soul, the museum appeals to a predominantly black audience that is often underserved in mainstream arts programming. Our commitment to local musicians is at the heart of this community engagement, and the museum provides regular, equitable opportunities for musicians to reach their audiences.
Without the fair compensation, public resources and engagement opportunities that professional musicians deserve, the music/entertainment world and the unity it is able to foster will disappear. Vaccination and safe presentation practices are key to this, but so are business models that reflect the essential place of musicians in our society and do not take their contributions for granted. We are reminded again and again how essential professional musicians are to our culture. We were reminded during COVID-19 and must remember what the pandemic taught us to support them in the future.
Communities for Immunity is an initiative of the Association of Science and Technology Centers; Institute for Museum and Library Activities; American Association of Museums; and the National Library of Medicine Network; with the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and in cooperation with the American Library Association; Association of African American Museums; Association of Children’s Museums; Association for Rural and Small Libraries; Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums; and the Council of Urban Libraries.
Erin Simon
Erin Simon is the Deputy Director of the National Blues Museum and manages fundraising, exhibitions, education and community outreach. Erin holds a B.A. in American Studies and holds a CFRE in fundraising. In addition, she often teaches in the community of St. Louisa and served as curator for NBM’s temporary exhibitions.
