Our History

It all started when…

Steve Salter created Killer Blues in 1995 after spending time helping out Billie Thomas at Tant Enterprises, a distributor of folk, blues and independent labels in Montague, Michigan only 5 miles from Steve’s home in Whitehall, Michigan. He and Billie spent many a weekend listening to old 78’s and drinking beer in Billie’s warehouse. Billie became a kind of mentor to Steve. Steve fondly remembers Billie as an irascible curmudgeon that had a wealth of knowledge of early jazz and pre-war blues. Soon Billie invited Steve to assist him at festivals selling jazz, folk and blues CDs. It wasn’t long before Steve decided to branch off on his own and service a niche market focusing on blues only. Steve and Billie continued their friendship until Billie’s death in 1998.

It was a fateful road trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1997 that The Killer Blues Headstone Project was born. On his way through Chicago, Steve decided to stop at a couple of cemeteries in the Chicago area known for the resting places of several blues artists he knew and loved. Steve wanted to pay his respects to those that had enriched his life with their music. He was greatly shocked to find that many blues artists had no markers on their graves. It was at that point he decided to do something about it. He had already begun compiling a list of birth and death dates of blues artists and researching where they were buried. He then began in earnest visiting the grave sites to see if they had markers. Although he found that some did, many more did not. Steve photographed those that did, which later became photos in his calendar.

Steve began immediately working to place headstones. At this point in time CD sales were slowly dwindling with the rise of the internet and he began to look for another source for funding. He came up with the Buried in the Blues calendar and spent several years researching and putting it all together before finally going to print in 2008. No other calendar was available that listed over 1,000 birth and death dates of blues artists! Also, in 2008 Steve put on the first White Lake Blues Festival in his hometown of Whitehall, to bring awareness to his cause and to raise more money for headstones. The festival was a success and the first headstone for Big Maceo was placed.

In 2009, The Killer Blues Headstone Project became a non-profit 501(c)(3).

The Killer Blues Headstone Project’s mission is ongoing. Our list of artists in need of a grave markers is long and growing. We will continue adding and updating the list of unmarked graves as we become aware of them through research or notification from other blues fans.

“I feel driven to place as many headstones as I can in my lifetime.” — Steve Salter

One grave at a time …