David Evans<University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997
Dear Dr. Broski,
I am writing to urge you to reconsider the plan to demolish what remains of the buildings along Maxwell Street and instead work to preserve this living example of American multi-ethnic neighborhood culture that has been so important to the development of blues music. As one who has researched blues for over thirty years, I can testify to the fact that little of the physical evidence for this music's history remains beyond historical recordings. It was a music born in rural poverty and usually performed in flimsy structures and ephemeral venues, often even outdoors, yet it has profoundly influenced popular music throughout the world during the twentieth century. The Maxwell Street neighborhood is central to the development of the blues in Chicago, which ranks alongside my home city of Memphis as one of the great creative places of this music. In Memphis I have seen much of Beale Street fall to ruin on account of civic neglect. There is still a chance to save a significant part of Maxwell Street and allow the formative blues musical culture to continue to flourish there. People now come there from all over the world to experience this music in one of the very few locations that can still be authentically linked to the music's past glories. Please reconsider and save this precious part of American musical and cultural history.
Sincerely,
David Evans, Ph. D.
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