Grammy-winning professor captured vanishing blues and got singers work
David Evans strums his guitar outside his Millington home Aug. 16. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
All the while David Evans was earning his doctorate in folklore and mythology at the University of California, Los Angeles, he was stealing away to Mississippi and Louisiana with a recorder in the backseat, capturing the bewitching blues he couldn’t stop hearing.
That was in the mid- to late-1960s.
In 1978, then an ethnomusicologist, Memphis State hired Evans to start and direct its graduate program in musicology.
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Jane Roberts
Jane Roberts has reported in Memphis for more than 20 years. As a senior member of The Daily Memphian staff, she was assigned to the medical beat during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also has done in-depth work on other medical issues facing our community, including shortages of specialists in local hospitals. She covered K-12 education here for years and later the region’s transportation sector, including Memphis International Airport and FedEx Corp.
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