Short Hills Man Helps Start Mississippi Music Program
A drummer and harmonica player from Short Hills helped launch a music program in a small town where the Blues was born.
It all began with harmonica camp. A little more than a year ago, Ed Masterson, a building manager by day and a blues musician by night, traveled from his home in Short Hills to the Mississippi Delta for harmonica camp. While he was there, a fellow camper took him to the nearby Tutwiler Community Education Center, where two nuns run programs an a clinic on a shoestring for residents in this impoverished little town, where the blues was born. Tutwiler, located in the Mississipi Delta, is a community of about 1,300, and long way from Short Hills. “It completely changed my life,” Masterson said. “In ways I couldn’t have imagined.” One of the things missing and for which there was no money was a music program. So Masterson and Jon Gindick of …
