National Blues Museum
The history
615 Washington Avenue, opened April 2016 in the ground floor of a 1900s Washington Avenue block — the museum of the whole American blues tradition rather than one city's slice of it, built here because St. Louis sat at the hinge of the Delta and Chicago and every migration between them passed through. W. C. Handy published 'Saint Louis Blues' in 1914 and it became the second most recorded song in history. Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, Albert King, Henry Townsend and Lonnie Johnson all worked this city; Townsend recorded in nine consecutive decades, which nobody else in the music has done.
In brief
The National Blues Museum opened at 615 Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis on 2 April 2016. It tells the story of the blues as the root of American popular music rather than the story of any one city, with a permanent gallery running from the Mississippi Delta through the Great Migration to rock and roll, and a 100-seat performance space. St. Louis was chosen for its position between the Delta and Chicago and for its own players — Chuck Berry, Albert King, Henry Townsend, Ike and Tina Turner.
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