Welcome to Beale Street Stories! Beale Street Stories is a digital storytelling archive that documents contemporary musicians who perform on Beale Street. Beale Street is a National Historic Landmark and an entertainment district in Memphis, Tennessee, and the musicians interviewed here entertain thousands of visitors each year, help sustain diverse traditions rooted in Memphis blues, and create and perform new music. Each interview is different, because each musician is different. 

The primary goals of this archive are 1. to document the musicians who currently perform on Beale Street, 2. to compensate these hard-working musicians for their time, and 3. to offer this content as accessibly as possible for the general public, researchers, and future generations. The archive is born-digital, which means the content is published online (with captions) and is free for all users to access. We plan to roll out teaching tools and opportunities in 2020.

The Beale Street Stories Collection is funded by a one-time grant from the University of Virginia and a sustaining grant from Beale Street Management. Beale Street Management believes that filming oral history interviews with the musicians of current day Beale Street preserves their stories, creates a unique scholarly archive, and provides one-of-a-kind content to enjoy for years to come. Funds are used to compensate musicians, pay the curator for booking interviews, filming, and editing, and to pay for the domain registration and audio-video equipment. If you are interested in donating, please email us. If you are interested in contacting the musicians, please see the links listed under their interview videos, or let us know!

Please check out:
Withers Collection & Museum (on Beale Street)
Historical Daisy Theater (on Beale Street) (901-525-7775)
The W.C. Handy House (on Beale Street)
Downtown Memphis Commission
Official Beale Street Website
The Memphis & Shelby County Room at the Memphis Public Library (for Beale Street-related archives)
University of Memphis Archives (for Beale Street-related archives)