Marsha Music, one of the winners of the Knight Arts Challenge, 2015, in Detroit. 57 artists/groups were chosen to receive matching grants for their proposed projects.
(the 2012 Kresge Fellows in the Literary and Performing Arts – Marsha Music, in white)
Recognized by UIX Detroit, November, 2014:
[http://www.uixdetroit.com/people/marshabattlephilpot.aspx]
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Profiled by ModelD, November 2014
http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/original-hipsters-103114.aspx
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On June 12, 2012, I was awarded a Kresge Fellowship in the Literary Arts. This prestigious award included a $25, 000 grant, professional develoment and an opportunity to present my work at the Art-X Festival in April of 2013. A truly awesome experience.
on April 17, 2013, as an outgrowth of the Kresge Fellowship, I performed a One Woman Show – Marsha Music – Live From Hastings Street! At the MOCAD gallery in Midtown Detroit to an enthusiastic, SRO crowd, during the ArtX Detroit Festival.
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I have been surprised, touched and sometimes awestruck at the reaction to my stories – especially the story about my father, record man Joe Von Battle. The complete article, “Requiem for a Record Shop Man”, was translated into Dutch for the music magazine “Block” in Holland, a labor of love that I deeply appreciate.
Requiem JVB in Dutch 1 (click on Pages column on the right for the complete article)
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Marsha Music has many international readers; my stories have touched readers in England, Wales and throughout Europe where the Blues and early R&B is still very much alive in music circles, as well as Australia and and Japan. Around the world there is much interest in and a great love of mid-century African-American music. and sections of this blog have been translated for music lovers in Spain:
http://www.tabernablues.com/?p=1141
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I sincerely thank the esteemed editor and music writer of the Detroit Metro Times, W. Kim Heron, for his lovely write-up and link (October 23, 2009) reprinted below, that brought many more readers to Marsha Music. http://metrotimes.com/blog/musicblahg.asp?perm=895
W. Kim Heron, Editor in Chief, Metro Times…I’ve wanted for some time to pull a few coattails for the blog Marsha Music: A Grown Woman’s Tales from Detroit. Marsha is Marsha Cusic, and her blog is a reminder that just as the personal is political, it’s also musical. She gives her views on Obama, on being the black mother of a biracial child, and observations on city life and growing up here. And some of her richest observations intertwine music and other aspects of her life, like Christmas-time and Motown Revue, or Isaac Hayes and a first date.memorial to her father, the late, legendary Joe Von Battle, is a gem. Serious blues, R&B and gospel fans recognize that name.
I haven’t had a chance to do more than skim — seems like there’s a small book of material posted on the blog already. But her long. But her long memorial to her father, the late, legendary Joe Von Battle, is a gem. Serious blues, R&B and gospel fans recognize that name.
Operating for years on Hastings Street, and later on 12th Street until the 1967 riot burned him out, Von Battle captured for posterity the likes of John Lee Hooker, Little Willie John, Jackie Wilson and Sonny Boy Williamson, not to mention the Rev. C.L. Franklin and his 14-year-old, never-recorded-before daughter Aretha. But the story, like all of the good ones, goes beyond music. Marsha captures several decades of one rich life, a rich Detroit life. Whether you start off knowing the name or not, you finish feeling you know the man.
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A thanks to you all, from Marsha Music!
Marsha Music 