About Living Blues

Living Blues

Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition is a bi-monthly American magazine focused on blues music, and America's oldest blues periodical. Founded in Chicago in 1970, it is now based in Oxford, Mississippi, and published by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. The editor is Brett Bonner, circulation is reported at 25,000, and the ISSN is 0024-5232. Its official website is livingblues.com.

Each issue contains artist interviews and profiles, record reviews, breaking-out features on up-and-coming artists, a monthly Top 25 national blues radio chart, and the most extensive CD and DVD review section in blues publishing. The annual Living Blues Awards have been presented since 1993 in multiple categories. The magazine stresses the position of blues as a living African American tradition — a stance reflected in its very name.

Publication at a Glance

Living Blues is published bi-monthly in English from Oxford, Mississippi. The magazine's publisher is the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, which acquired the publication in 1983. Circulation stands at approximately 25,000. The magazine's contributors have included some of the most respected names in blues journalism, and its photographers include Jack Vartoogian, Bill Steber, and Jim Fraher. Blues singer Deitra Farr was a regular contributor.

Founding in Chicago, 1970

The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel as editors, with five others as writers — among them Bruce Iglauer and Paul Garon. The first copies were sold at the 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. The first issue featured blues legend Howlin' Wolf on the cover, beginning the magazine's practice of printing long articles, extensive reviews, and shorter news segments.

Jim O'Neal, who cofounded the magazine, remains a founding editor and has served as research director of the Mississippi Blues Trail, writing text for its historical markers. The editors at founding resisted the urge to define the blues, declaring: "blues speaks for itself. We do not intend to explain, define, or confine the blues. We believe the blues to be a living tradition, and we hope to present some insights into this tradition."

The Editorial Approach

The Living Blues approach was, as O'Neal later wrote in the introduction to The Voice of the Blues (a 2002 collection of the magazine's "classic interviews"), "simply to get the artists to tell the stories of their lives and their careers, to trace the development of the music, and to tell us what they knew about other musicians." That approach revealed history, social commentary, humor, and sometimes distrust among the blues community.

Living Blues became known for the length and depth of its interviews as well as for its photo essays, which document performers, clubs, festivals, and other blues events. When the magazine was founded, people interested in blues music and its history had few resources, and Living Blues provided a way to preserve the history, document the present, and open the music to both new and old audiences — featuring established artists, newcomers, and performers ignored by other blues sources.

The Move to Oxford

In 1983, O'Neal and van Singel sold the publication rights to the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and donated to the Center their collection of blues records, photos, subject files, and memorabilia. The Center for the Study of Southern Culture had been established at the University in 1977; its director at the time, Dr. William R. Ferris, was a Vicksburg native who had written his doctoral dissertation on Delta blues traditions and had been a contributor to Living Blues.

At the time of the sale the magazine became bi-monthly, with O'Neal still the editor, and the headquarters moved to Oxford, Mississippi. O'Neal and van Singel moved from Chicago to Oxford after the transfer. In 1980 they had cofounded the Rooster Blues record label, and O'Neal later started the Stackhouse label and helped establish the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in Clarksdale. The Center launched its own Southern Culture label in 1983 to document Mississippi blues, gospel, and folk music.

Editors Through the Years

Following O'Neal, the magazine was edited by Peter Lee — who later founded the Oxford-based Fat Possum Records — then by David Nelson and Scott Barretta, and since 2014 by Brett Bonner. Its writers have included David Evans, Samuel Charters, Paul Garon, William Ferris, Barry Lee Pearson, John Brisbin, David Whiteis, Jim DeKoster, and Roger Wood. Ferris, Nelson, and Barretta also served as hosts of the University-produced radio show "Highway 61," which began its long tenure on Mississippi Public Broadcasting in 1984.

Content and Regular Features

Living Blues has provided fans with in-depth stories on legendary blues artists such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Koko Taylor, and John Lee Hooker, while also focusing on creative originals often overlooked by other blues press — artists like Otha Turner, Chris Thomas King, and Super Chikan. Each issue features current blues news, "Breaking Out" articles on up-and-coming artists, extensive CD and DVD reviews, and the Living Blues Radio Charts, providing the music industry with one of the most accurate compilations of playlists from blues radio programmers worldwide.

The Living Blues Awards

The annual Living Blues Awards have been presented since 1993 in multiple categories, honoring the year's outstanding blues artists, recordings, and releases as voted by the magazine's readers and critics. The awards are among the most respected honors in blues music, complementing the Blues Foundation's own awards and reflecting the magazine's standing in the blues community.

Recognition and the Blues Trail

In 2009, Living Blues was honored by the state of Mississippi with a Mississippi Blues Trail historical marker — official recognition of the magazine's role in documenting and promoting the blues tradition. Living Blues is also a past recipient of the Blues Foundation's prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive Award. Beginning in 2003, the magazine has sponsored the "Blues Today: A Living Blues Symposium" each spring on the University of Mississippi campus, featuring keynote speakers such as Paul Oliver, Samuel Charters, and Bill Ferris, as well as intimate musical performances by Honeyboy Edwards, Little Milton, and B.B. King.

The Blues Archive

Dr. William Ferris was instrumental in establishing the University's Blues Archive, which opened in 1984. Ferris arranged for his friend B.B. King to contribute his large record collection and for O'Neal and van Singel to donate the Living Blues Collection of records, photos, subject files, and memorabilia. The Archive, housed at the J. D. Williams Library, has aided thousands of researchers and has been headed by archivists Suzanne Flandreau, Edward Komara, and Greg Johnson. The University has also offered courses on blues topics taught by Ferris, Peter Aschoff, Adam Gussow, David Evans, and others.

The Blues Today Symposium

Since 2003, Living Blues has sponsored the "Blues Today: A Living Blues Symposium" each spring on the University of Mississippi campus. The symposium's keynote speakers have included Paul Oliver, Samuel Charters, and Bill Ferris, and its intimate musical performances have featured Honeyboy Edwards, Little Milton, and B.B. King. The event reflects the magazine's dual identity as both a journalistic enterprise and a scholarly institution — a magazine published by a university research center, embedded in the academic study of Southern culture.

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture's acquisition of the magazine in 1983 placed Living Blues at the heart of the University of Mississippi's blues infrastructure: alongside the Blues Archive (opened 1984), the "Highway 61" radio show on Mississippi Public Broadcasting (begun 1984), blues courses taught by faculty including Ferris, Peter Aschoff, Adam Gussow, and David Evans, and the Southern Culture record label launched in 1983 to document Mississippi blues, gospel, and folk music.

Official Website

The magazine's official website is https://www.livingblues.com, offering subscriptions, back issues, current issue highlights, and information on the Living Blues Awards and the Blues Today symposium. The magazine began as a forty-page quarterly priced at fifty cents; today it remains, more than five decades on, America's oldest continuously published blues periodical and the standard-setter for blues journalism worldwide.