Blues & Brews Partners With Music Maker Relief Foundation

Music Maker Relief Foundation: dedicated to helping the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day-to-day needs.

As the 2017 Telluride Blues & Brews Festival draws closer, we are thrilled for the opportunity to once again partner with and contribute to the endeavors of the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The MMRF was founded to preserve the musical traditions of America's South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time. Through programs dedicated to cultural access, musical development and musician sustenance, the Foundation gives future generations access to their heritage through documentation and performance programs that build knowledge and appreciation of America's musical traditions.

At this year's festival, we look forward to having two profoundly talented artists from the MMRF roster, Robert Finley and Alabama Slim, join us to perform on the festival's Main Stage and Blues Stage.


Music Maker Relief Foundation

Since their founding in 1994, the Foundation has assisted and partnered with over 300 artists, issued over 150 albums and reached over a million people with live performances in over 40 states and 17 countries around the globe. We are honored to work alongside this compassionate organization in an effort to ensure the continuity of some of the purest and most honest forms of music in American history. Want to get involved? You can change lives with a simple music shop purchase or by making a tax-deductible donation today. Learn more and donate, click here.


Robert Finley

Robert Finley chose the blues when he was just 11 years old. The Bernice, Louisiana native needed new shoes and his father sent to town with money to get a new pair. He returned home wearing his old shoes, but the proud owner of a guitar. Inspired by his love of the ladies to learn his craft, Robert worked hard at it and succeeded. While in the Army, he led a band that wowed both the troops and European audiences with deep soul and R&B hits of the day. Back home, keeping a band together was harder, so he made his living at carpentry, picking up solo gigs when he could. Today, now legally blind, he no longer has to bang nails for a living but, with the help of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, keeps busy touring and working at what he does best – steamy blues, imaginative lyrics and a show that just won’t quit. He’s all about “making magic happen.” Read, listen and watch more here.

Sunday, 17th at 12:30 pm (Main Stage)


Alabama Slim

It may have taken Alabama Slim 50 years to get into the recording studio, but when he did, he brought with him the haunting magic of the very roots of blues. A tall man whose guitar work is spare and understated, and a lonesome, moaning singing style he learned as a child from his elders, Alabama Slim calls to mind the steamy Alabama juke joints where he earned his chops. Born Milton Frazier, he grew up listening to Big Bill Broonzy and Lightnin’ Hopkins on his parents’ 78s, influences evident in every note. With a hand-up from Music Makers Relief Foundation, he’s been touring the country and Europe, recorded two fine albums – Blue and Lonesome and The Mighty Flood – and now appears at the festival as one of its finest practitioners of a revered musical tradition. Read, listen and watch more here.

Sunday, 17th at 5:30 pm (Blues Stage)


"What is worth keeping is worth passing on. Help preserve American music"

Steve Gumble2017