Keeping St. Louis Blues Alive
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Start Date
24-4-2025 12:00 AM
Description
In 1989, the St. Louis Blues Society launched a semi-monthly newsletter called “The Bluesletter” to promote the St. Louis Blues and combat what many saw as the stagnation of this distinctive music scene. Scholarship has examined the decline of music scenes and shown that the community and identity that fans form around music genres suffer when their social networks stagnate. Less work has been done to examine the efforts that activists take to prevent the death of declining music scenes. By examining The Bluesletter from 1989 to 2020 as a case study, this paper will show that the promoters of St. Louis Blues believed that lack of support for local artists and music venues lied at the heart of their genre’s decline, and they sought to reinvigorate the scene by mobilizing community support for the people and institutions that kept it alive.
Recommended Citation
Velker, Lucille, "Keeping St. Louis Blues Alive" (2025). 2025 Student Academic Showcase. 3.
https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/src_2025/Oral_Presentations/oral_presentations/3
Keeping St. Louis Blues Alive
In 1989, the St. Louis Blues Society launched a semi-monthly newsletter called “The Bluesletter” to promote the St. Louis Blues and combat what many saw as the stagnation of this distinctive music scene. Scholarship has examined the decline of music scenes and shown that the community and identity that fans form around music genres suffer when their social networks stagnate. Less work has been done to examine the efforts that activists take to prevent the death of declining music scenes. By examining The Bluesletter from 1989 to 2020 as a case study, this paper will show that the promoters of St. Louis Blues believed that lack of support for local artists and music venues lied at the heart of their genre’s decline, and they sought to reinvigorate the scene by mobilizing community support for the people and institutions that kept it alive.