News
Steve Salter’s Mission to Honor Blues Legends
By: Amy Yonkman
WHITEHALL, MI — In 1997, standing in a quiet Chicago cemetery, Steve Salter experienced a moment that would change his life forever. As he walked among the graves of blues artists who had inspired generations, he was stunned to discover that many of them lay in unmarked graves—their names and legacies slowly fading from physical memory. Among them was Otis Spann, one of the most influential blues pianists of all time. “I was profoundly saddened and disheartened,” Steve recalls. “Otis was not the sole blues artist I encountered that day without a grave marker, which compelled me to work on this injustice and embark on a lifelong mission to ensure that no blues artist would end up in an unmarked grave.”
That mission became the Killer Blues Headstone Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing headstones for blues artists resting in unmarked graves across the country.