Inkandescent Public Relations

Editorial Direction: Lisa Resnick
Writer: Theresa Sotto
Design: The Kirwan Company
Client: The Kennedy Center

“Blues, blues, blues, blues, what you mean to me?”

By Jerome Hairston
Based on a book by Walter Dean Myers
Illustrated by Christopher Myers

What happens in Blues Journey?

Blues Journey is a play about a uniquely American musical form — the blues. Through song and storytelling, Blues Journey traces the history of the blues from its roots in the Southern U.S. to its impact on the world music scene.

The play beings with a man named Willie Brown who tells a story: A character called The Great One met the devil in a crossroads (a place where two or more roads meet) and made an unusual deal.

Next Willie explains how he met Alan Lomax, a man who traveled to the South to record the blues. Lomax convinces Willie to move to Chicago so that Willie can make blues records. In Chicago, Willie is down on his luck until a stormy night turns the blues electric.

The rest is history.