I was saddened to read this morning of the death of Algia Mae Hinton, the piedmont blues guitarist and singer, whose album, Honey Babe, I have embedded here.
I bought Honey Babe several years ago from Bandcamp,1 and it has become a favourite. Through purchasing it, I learned of the work of the Music Maker Relief Foundation((https://musicmaker.org/)), which supports musicians from the American folk traditions who have made some of the purest of American art, without seeing much profit from their creativity. Ms Hinton’s page on the foundation’s website is here.
Have a click on the album embed above and, if you like it, buy a copy. At the same time, if you can spare $5 or so, or even a little more, please donate to the GoFundMe appeal2 to cover Ms Hinton’s funeral costs.
There is a very affecting profile of Ms Hinton in the local paper of her city, Raleigh, North Carolina,3 published last year. It describes a difficult life, but a life well lived. Reading it, I regretted that I had not clicked on the “contact the artist” link on Ms Hinton’s Bandcamp page,4 and told her how much her album means to me.
- My Bandcamp collection [↩]
- https://www.gofundme.com/algia-mae-hinton?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-151861524968-924ec31f29534860&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=email&utm_content=cta_button&utm_campaign=upd_n [↩]
- http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/on-the-beat-blog/article144441034.html [↩]
- https://algiamaehinton.bandcamp.com/album/honey-babe [↩]