Greensboro College's Healing Blues Project Announces Second Benefit CD

Art Professor Ted Efremoff, one of the

founders of the Healing Blues Project

"GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Greensboro College's art and music departments, along with other faculty, staff, students, and area musicians, plan to produce and sell a second Healing Blues Project CD to raise awareness of and money to fight homelessness.

The first Healing Blues CD, released in October 2014, featured blues and blues-related songs whose lyrics were built from the true stories of persons experiencing homeless, with local musicians providing the music. The participating storytellers received songwriting credit with the professional songwriters.

The proceeds benefited the Interactive Resource Center, a day center in downtown Greensboro for people experiencing homelessness or who are at imminent risk of homelessness.  Guests of the IRC may shower, do laundry, receive medical care, as well as case management and assistance in looking for jobs.  The first Healing Blues album raised more than $10,000 for the IRC. 

Vol. 2 will feature both songs and spoken-word compositions, says Greensboro College music professor Dave Fox, one of the originators of the Healing Blues Project and producer of the first CD. Release date for the second CD will be June 2016.

Collaborating on the project will be art professor Ted Efremoff, another of the Healing Blues originators, who has moved from Greensboro College to Central Connecticut State University. The idea for the Healing Blues grew out of Efremoff's efforts in the area of social-practice art.

Initially, Efremoff had responded to a call for artists to create blues-themed art installations, designed to bring attention to the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society's Carolina Blues Festival. The society was immediately struck by the concept and scope of Eftremoff's idea and became a partner in the project, providing musician names and other support.

The musicians who provided their talents, along with many who did not take part in Vol. 1, will be contributing to the project.

"We all had such a great time making the first album that we're inviting the original musicians and songwriters to help out again," Fox says. "Plus, we're opening the doors to many new collaborators." 

Vol. 2 will be partially funded by a project-support grant from the local nonprofit ArtsGreensboro to the Interactive Resource Center.  Fox says a series of benefit concerts in support of sales of the new CD is being planned.  Downloads and hard copies of the first CD, which received critical acclaim from reviewers in the United States and Europe, are still available for sale.

"We want to raise even more awareness about homelessness in Greensboro," Fox says, "and we want to get even more people involved in working toward a solution." 

Greensboro College provides a liberal-arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and, spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.

Founded in 1838 and located near downtown Greensboro, the college enrolls about 1,000 students from 29 states and territories, the District of Columbia and seven foreign countries in its undergraduate liberal-arts program and four master's degree programs. In addition to rigorous academics and a well-supported Honors program, the school features a 17-sport NCAA Division III athletic program and dozens of service and recreational opportunities."

- A Press Release