THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS TO PREVIEW “WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS” EXHIBITION ILLUMINATING LIVING SOUTHERN MUSIC CULTURES AND COMMUNITIES

TRAVELING EXHIBITION COMMEMORATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF NON-PROFIT MUSIC & SUPPORT ORGANIZATION

Music Maker Relief Foundation – the non-profit organization that supports traditional Southern musicians  by documenting and presenting their art – will be the subject of a museum exhibition set to preview July 9 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (40 Lincoln Center Plaza) and run through August 29 in the Dorothy And Lewis B. Cullman Center, Corridor Gallery. “We Are the Music Makers,” which delves deeply into the living southern musical culture and the musicians themselves, will travel to venues throughout the country over the next five to seven years.

GRAMMY Award-winning musician Marty Stuart said, “Throughout We Are The Music Makers, the viewer is granted access to worlds that are beyond reach and off limits to most. There is less than a razor’s edge of difference in royalty and rogue at the bedrock of American roots music.”

Folk music and photography legend John Cohen said, “I have never seen photographs generate so much of the atmosphere and personalities of blues music.”

In addition to musical instruments, the GRAMMY Award won by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, North Carolina folk art, and vintage cameras, visitors will experience thirty panels that feature photographs of traditional Southern musicians taken by Music Maker founder and head Tim Duffy over the last twenty years, many of which are also featured in his Nautilus Press book We Are The Music Makers, out September 30. The exhibit panels speak to the significance of each musician’s style and have a storytelling quality, putting each figure in the context of his cultural community. Audio recordings and a film are also included which further enhances the content of the panels.

The instruments include a fiddle handcrafted by Music Maker artist Samuel Turner of Asheville, NC; folk art by Sam McMillan of Winston-Salem, NC; and a banjo signed to Tim Duffy by Guitar Gabriel; and a guitar named Pawnshop owned by Adolphus Bell of Birmingham, AL.

"BADASS" (ROLLING STONE) GRACE ASKEW TO RELEASE SUN STUDIO-CUT NOIR ALBUM ‘SCAREDY CAT’ AUGUST 11

FIRST ALBUM SINCE HER NBC THE VOICE PERFORMANCES ON TEAM BLAKE

Sixth generation Memphian and serial rambler Grace Askew stakes her claim with ‘Scaredy Cat,’ the new album recorded at Sun Studios, due out August 11. It’s her first album since her highly-touted and much beloved series of performances on NBC’s The Voice, for Team Blake, which vastly expanded the national fanbase that she earned from years behind the wheel of a pickup truck headlining shows; opening for Marty Stuart, Hayes Carll, Jesse Winchester, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; and touring with James McMurtry and Lisa Marie Presley.

‘Scaredy Cat’ highlights her smoky vocals with spare arrangements inspired by the grit and muddy Delta roots of her hometown, captured in single takes to tape. The songwriting feels as if she is letting you in on a secret world. Rolling Stone Country premiered the first single alongside a Q&A.

Askew has already earned considerable acclaim, most recently for her 2013 EP and single, both entitled “Empty Rooms,” written in New Mexico.

Huffington Post said, “Smoky with atmospheric blues and Resonator-guitar toned country licks, the EP's tunes creep under your skin and grab hold.”

Yahoo! Music called her "smoldering and searing," continuing, "Grace Askew was the fabulous 'bluntry' (blues + country) singer from 'The Voice' Season 4, the girl with the badass beehive, boots made for walkin', and velvet 'n' sandpaper vocals who would've been right at home on Jack White's Third Man Records roster."

Daytrotter raved about "her extraordinary voice," saying, "Mark our words, Memphis' Grace Askew will be the best thing to ever come out of 'The Voice…' Askew has officially taped one of the finest Daytrotter sessions of all-time. Just listen. She makes us believe in the beauty of hurt and the elixir of booze."

Here's her performance of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" live on The Voice.

Previously, Sing Out! Magazine said, "If Tom Waits had a singer/writer daughter in Memphis, it would be Askew with her gallery of lost souls on the graveyard shift. Gutsy, bluesy, and a bit boozy, she quietly sings with jagged languor and a skewed spirituality. Discreet percussion, guitar and, on occasion, wistful lap steel notes sagely frame her rough-hewn sophistication."