The Blues Foundation

The Blues Foundation, founded in Memphis in 1980, became an international organization dedicated to honoring, preserving, and promoting the blues. It grew from a small base of Memphis supporters who presented the first W. C. Handy Blues Awards at the Orpheum Theatre on November 16, 1980, and developed into a worldwide network with thousands of members and affiliations with hundreds of blues societies and organizations. Mississippi-born performers and business professionals have been represented in the Blues Hall of Fame in greater numbers than those from any other state, and Mississippians have won many Blues Music Awards, Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, and International Blues Challenge competitions. A majority of the first twenty Blues Hall of Fame inductees in 1980 were born in Mississippi, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Son House, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed, Charley Patton, and Memphis Minnie, and by 2012 more than fifty Mississippians had been inducted. As the Foundation expanded, it added education programs, blues conferences, health care, the Handy Artists Relief Trust Fund, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and the International Blues Challenge, while continuing to recognize Mississippi's crucial role in blues history and Memphis's long place as a gateway to and from the Mississippi Delta for musicians and blues fans worldwide. In 2010, it acquired a building at 421 South Main Street as the permanent address of the Blues Hall of Fame and the International Home of Blues Music.

Memphis, Tennessee · United States