For over 25 years Robert Jones has been a champion of American Roots music, with a special emphasis on traditional African American music. He is also a storyteller, a preacher, an artist, and a teacher.  The Mississippi Valley Blues Society is proud to present Robert Jones as its April Blues in the Schools artist-in-residency for the week of April 16-20 for workshops at 10 area schools and two open-to-the-public performances:

• Monday, April 16:  CASI—1035 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport;  11:40 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
• Monday, April 16:  River Music Experience—2nd and Main, Davenport;  7:00-9:00 p.m

Robert Jones says, “Stories, spirituals, blues, work songs, field hollers, country music, folk songs, gospel and original songs are all a part of fabric of America’s culture. This is the music that gave the world blues, jazz, R&B, bluegrass, rock and even Hip Hop. They give insight into the way that we have lived and the ways that we continue to live together.  I feel it is the responsibility of the artist to pass along and to build upon that which has been learned from earlier generations.”

Robert Jones  plays guitar, fiddle, harmonica, quills, banjo and mandolin.  He’s played with JohnHammond, the Holmes Brothers, Hubert Sumlin, Cephas & Wiggins, Keb Mo’, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Howard Armstrong, Nappy Brown, Roy BookBinder, David Bromberg, Chris Smither, Guy Davis, Pinetop Perkins, Saffire, and Willie Dixon.  This faculty member at Wayne State University, Port Townsend Blues Week. and Fur Peace Ranch is the recipient of the international Blues Foundation’s  2007 Keeping the Blues Alive award  for Education and was the 2010Teller-in-Residence—National Storytelling Center, Jonesborough TN.

James "Super Chikan" Johnson—a Blues Music Award winning blues musician, artist, educator, and guitar maker based in Clarksdale, Mississippi—is the artist-in-residence for the MVBS Blues in the Schools program for February 2012. He will be conducting workshops at schools and colleges throughout the Quad Cities during the week of February 20 through 24. Also scheduled are two open-to-the-public performances: Tuesday Feb. 21 at Black Hawk College in Moline IL—10:30 a.m., Building 4 The Hawk's Nest, and Wednesday Feb. 22 at the River Music Experience in Davenport IA—7:00 p.m. And the Muddy Waters (1708 State Street, Bettendorf IA) will be hosting Super Chikan on Friday Feb. 24 at 9:00 p.m.

James Louis Johnson was born in Darling, Mississippi on February 16, 1951. One of eleven children, Johnson came from a musical family. His grandfather, Ellis Johnson, played the fiddle in local string bands, and one of his uncles, Big Jack Johnson, was an internationally known blues musician. He spent his childhood moving from town to town in the Mississippi Delta and working on his family's farms. He was very fond of the chickens on the farm, and before he was old enough to work in the fields, he would walk around talking to them. This led his friends to give him the nickname "Chikan Boy."

At an early age, James got his first musical instrument, a diddley bow, which was simply a piece of wood with a piece of baling wire stretched from end to end. As he grew up, he came up with new ways to improve and vary the sounds he could make with it, and finally, in 1964, at the age of thirteen, he bought his first guitar, an acoustic model that had only two strings, from a Salvation Army store in Clarksdale. At age 19 he began hitting the jukes, playing bass with his uncle, Big Jack Johnson, and went on to play bass and guitar for a number of Delta blues bandleaders, including Frank Frost, Ernest Roy Sr. and Sam Carr.

Blues mandolinist, guitarist, writer, and educator Rich DelGrosso along with guitarist Jonn Del Toro Richardson will be the first residency artists to conduct workshops at area schools and free open-to-the-public performances for the 2011-2012 MVBS Blues in the Schools Artists in Residency Series during the week of October 31 through November 4. This includes free performances at Barnes and Noble (Northpark Mall, Davenport) on Tuesday November 1 at 7:00 p.m. and at Mojo’s at the River Music Experience (2^nd and Main, Davenport) on Wednesday November 2 at 7:00 p.m. The DelGrosso/Del Toro Richardson Band will also play at the Muddy Waters (1708 State Street, Bettendorf IA) on Friday November 4 at 9:00 p.m.; admission is free. The Education Committee decided to bring DelGrosso back to the Quad-Cities after observing his highly successful Blues in the Schools residency in November 2008.

Inspired by rock & roll music which he heard over the radio while growing up in Detroit, Rich DelGrosso began playing guitar at the age of 11. Soon after, he took a deep interest in the blues after hearing recordings of such legends as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. While on a family vacation to Italy around the time of his senior year in high school, DelGrosso discovered the beauty of the mandolin, and he brought one home to Detroit, where he began teaching himself how to play it.

Percussionist, storyteller, author, and educator James Culver will be presenting a Blues in the Schools program at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Rock Island, June 28-30, sponsored by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society. Culver will then bring his students to the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival’s BlueSKool Tent on Saturday July 2 and Sunday July 3.

Drums and percussion instruments will be at the heart of the workshops, both at the MLK Center and at the Festival. “I am going to focus on ‘The Rhythms of the Blues.’ We are going to play and sing over common blues rhythmic patterns,” Culver says. “Any participant is welcome to bring any kind of percussion instrument she would like (clapping and stomping work too). I want them to be creative in what they choose to bring.”

Next, Culver says, “I'll divide the kids into percussion groups, and we'll start learning songs for the performance. We will do slow, 12 bar blues, up-tempo blues, a blues waltz and even a jump blues tune (with scatting) to show the transition to swing and jazz.

“I'll start with a brief introduction to connect blues with the music of today and then we'll get started. We will write a blues song together that the kids will perform and then work on the rhythmic patterns and the songs that go with them.”

James Culver, a central Illinois native, is a blues and jazz percussionist, singer, storyteller, author, and educator with a wide variety of musical influences and interests. He began as a gospel drummer at the age of 11, playing gospel music professionally through his time at Bradley University, where he also played for the Bradley University Gospel Choir. Later, James co-founded, directed, and performed throughout Iowa and Illinois with the Kewanee Interfaith Gospel Choir.