Capturing The Undersung Blues People Of The Rural South

Timothy Duffy is on a mission to document America's vernacular music — specifically, the blues — and the everyday men and women who carry on the tradition. He's the co-founder of Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit that helps struggling and aging musicians.

Duffy is also a photographer, and his new project is a collection of portraits of these musicians, who are not typically in the spotlight. It's the subject of an exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art through the end of July.

Duffy's vivid black-and-white portraits, captured with an early photographic process called tintype, are also collected in the new book, Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy's Southern Photographs. The book includes a compilation album so you can hear the music behind the faces.

Over its 25-year history, Music Maker has helped more than 400 artists, most of them in the latter stages of life. The bluesman Taj Mahal is among the better-known musicians who have worked with the nonprofit to help celebrate lesser-known players.

"Both the microphone and the camera pass them by," Taj Mahal says. "A lot of the work was done by ... people who are nameless."