Brother Blue
Encyclopedia
Hugh Morgan Hill, who performed as Brother Blue was an African American
educator, storyteller
, actor
, musician, street performer and living icon in Boston, in Cambridge, at Harvard University
, MIT, and in the global oral storytelling community. After serving as First Lieutenant from 1943-1946 in the segregated U.S. army in World War II and being honorably discharged, he received a BA from Harvard College
in 1948 (cum laude in Social Relations), was accepted into the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
(GSAS) before transferring to receive a MFA
from the Yale School of Drama
and a Ph.D.
(Divinity with pastoral sacred storytelling) from the Union Institute, having delivered his doctoral presentation at Boston's Deer Island Prison
, accompanied by a 25 piece jazz orchestra, with a video recording for his dissertation committee's further consideration. While performing frequently at US National Storytelling Festivals and flown abroad by organizations and patrons from England to Russia and the Bahamas, Brother Blue regularly performed on the streets around Cambridge, most notably in Harvard Square
. He was the Official Storyteller of Boston
and of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA by resolution of both city councils, a most unusual honor, doubled.
Brother Blue was a 2009 recipient of the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal from the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute
at Harvard University, named for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the first African American to earn a Harvard PhD in 1895. Brother Blue's award was accepted posthumously on his behalf by his spouse, Ruth Edmonds Hill
, oral historian at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
at Harvard University, on December 4, 2009, sadly a bare month after his death, for what Henry Louis Gates Jr. cited as "his desire to build a better world, one story at a time." In his performances and in private communications, Brother Blue frequently exhorted people to tell "stories that change the world," with the combination caveat-encouragement, "We want a story from your heart. If it's not from your heart, don't tell it."
Blue's storytelling career began with the tales he told his beloved retarded younger brother Thomas who was unable to read and write. Unable to say "Hugh" clearly, Thomas spoke his elder brother's name with a sound close to the word "Blue," a sobriquet which came to reflect Brother Blue's personal journey and in turn imbued his persona some of his public stories of his brother Thomas. History records that Thomas died young in an institution. Brother Blue's versions tell of how Thomas was "special" and mostly wanted to fly, so he climbed on the roof of the house and fell to his death. Blue muses, "Thomas...he thought he could fly, he thought could fly, so he tried." Especially in the middle portion of his career, Brother Blue would often explain that, ever grieving, he was still looking for his brother, and "he might be you."
Entering Harvard on scholarship, Brother Blue won the undergraduate Boylston Prize for his recital of a speech penned and originally orated by Haitian slave rebellion leader Toussaint L'Ouverture
. He subsequently won the Walt Whitman
International Media Competition for delivering selections from The Autobiography of Malcolm X
. Inspired by American Civil Liberties attorney Clarence Darrow
of Scopes Trial
, son of an abolitionist family, Brother Blue initially intended to apply to law school in order to become "the black Clarence Darrow
." However his storytelling calling brought him successfully to Yale School of Drama's graduate school instead before obtaining his doctorate in Divinity from the Union Institute.
(Morpho genus) native to South America
yet admired around the world for its over 80 species, a globe-spanning welcome totem. Personally dedicated to improvisation, Brother Blue welcomed variation in its styling, acknowledging its ancient Greek association with the diversities and flights of psyche. In the later part of his career, Brother Blue constantly wore a broad breast-plate sized medallion suspended around his neck which was a gift among the butterfly tokens with which people expressed their appreciation and affection for the hills. Even then, many other butterflies from the myriad he wore through his career bedecked his whole body, and blue butterflies were frequently painted on cheeks and in the palms of his hands, with blue ballpoint pens when no other cosmetic was handy; blue butterflies in his palms are featured in his role as Merlin in the Knightriders and the camera zooms in on his butterfly hand sadly and poetically waving goodbye at the camera during a funeral at which he officiates in the film. The Morpho butterfly or large, fanciful blue hued lepidoptera grace Brother Blue's publications, media jackets, festival banners, ornamental staff, and stages. The story of a caterpillar's struggles, hopes and dreams and metamorphosis into a butterfly was one of Brother Blue's signature motifs.
Usually sporting a close-fitting hat, Brother Blue particularly favored a blue beret on which butterfly pins, some with rhinestones or sea opals, were affixed. He wore a sash emblazoned with "BROTHER BLUE STORYTELLER" in his capacity as Official Storyteller of Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Lacing his shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles and elsewhere were often curling ribbons, and he was known to carry bright blue balloons with his predominantly blue ensemble, underlying his finery with blue turtlenecks or collared shirts and blue pants. In the Judaic and Vedic and African traditions, he often appeared barefoot or would take off his shoes in the early course of a performance to touch earth as sacred ground.
Brother Blue's 2002 business card read "Storyteller, Street Poet, Soul Theater.".
Brother Blue's unique style of storytelling made extensive use of rhyme, rhythm, and improvisation, creating a verbal jazz of words and images. He referred to himself as a street poet and, in the same words as Saint Francis of Assisi, as God's fool. He told idiosyncratic versions of Shakespeare's King Lear
, "The Big O, Othell-O" and Romeo and Juliet
, a variety of self-mythologizing autobiographical stories, and always his signature story about a caterpillar's first vision of a butterfly. MacArthur Fellow, Salzburg Festival bad boy wunderkind of revisioned theatrical works Peter Sellars
(Harvard College Class of 1981) cast Brother Blue as an idiosyncratic actor in updated classical productions in such venues as The American Repertory Theater.
Brother Blue's PhD, spanning the seminary work of Harvard Divinity School and the Episcopal Divinity School
and oral storytelling through the Union Institute, ministering to civil prisoners while performing for and out of their trials so he could "tell the greatest stories to those in the greatest need," typified the highly multifaith homilies his stories would sometimes include.
As an educator, Brother Blue taught at the Episcopal and Harvard Divinity Schools, then with Ruth Hill in the Harvard Storytelling Workshop held in venues across Harvard University's campus, on television through WGBH, and in his most casual later forum, Storytelling with Brother Blue.
The epic in the human situation, fundamental issues of birth, love, loss of siblings, anguish, death, subjective ugliness, impairment, imprisonment, divinity, freedom, imagination, daring, yearning, and the discontent which transforms social roles, conveyed through the most ancient of story cycles, African and Franco-Welsh legend, Shakespeare, modern jazz interpretations, and post-post-modern improvisation reaching directly to epic gestalt through even humble incidents are an enduring weight in Brother Blue's compositions, performance, professing in academia and in practica.
Often these grand themes would pour through picaresque characters, though also through socially high profile characters portrayed such as Othello or unnamed archetypal personalities such as the Old Storyteller or This Little Girl or Someone Who's Somewhere Everywhere.
among Brother Blue's internationally influential League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES) colleagues who treat this subject systematically within the oral storytelling field as well as in corporate consultation toward realizing human potential. Cautious of "the green dance" himself, Brother Blue eschewed the world of commerce and economics as much as the formality of numericalized aptitude assessment, and explained that he preferred to address people "in their wonderfulness" regardless of their situation and the tentativeness of their product and expression, calling on their individual superlativeness.
Improvisation was a pervasive element in Brother Blue's performances and one of the chief skills he nourished in others. "I call it cosmic jazz. I don't repeat myself, I don't write it down, you can't get it in a book, in a book" he said (2008).
In the early and middle parts of his career, Brother Blue practiced Calling the Muse to open any gathering of storytellers or storytelling.
(which gave its ancient Greek
sense to modern concepts of psyche
)
Brother Blue believed that telling stories is itself a divine calling. "I think I was anointed to be a storyteller—I mean touched by the fire," he said. "I can tell stories in my sleep and blow the world away!" Avowing that he was "working on greatness!" he described what he sought from everyone as "stories to change the world." He declared that "Love will overcome all in this world. Love’s gonna win. Nothing can stop this. There will be these fools that come along, and I don’t mind being that fool, who is trying to express that. I have this madness—volition—this chosen madness to believe that I can change this world". "Storytelling is a sacred art," he emphasized. "And the irony of it is that most people—if you say that—back away. They want to be amused mostly, or have a way of passing a little time. Not Blue. Even when I'm trying to be funny, I'm trying to give you my soul. That's strong".
At Harvard, Brother Blue studied under Albert Bates Lord who was, with Milman Parry
, among the coterie of those who compared the methods of the most venerable surviving contemporary Slavic
and Eastern Mediterranean
bardic tellers of traditional sagas with the language and content and literary formats of the Homeric epics
, concluding that Homeric works derived from or were transcribed out of oral storytelling forms, as ultimately documented in The Singer of Tales (1960) These were themes in global mythography, contemporary with work such as that of Marija Gimbutas
and Joseph Campbell
which Brother Blue addressed in his training of others. Albert Lord's 1954 class also led Herbert Mason
to write his intensely personal Gilgamesh, A Verse Narrative (1970) as Mason's own bosom young friend lay deathly ill, and which was narrated for accompaniment to the international museum exhibit, Treasures of the Royal Tombs of Ur, with dedication to both Mason and the Hills by a student of Brother Blue and Ruth Hill as Gilgamesh: God King of Sumer, The Oldest Story in the World, along with Diane Wolkstein's portrayal of Inanna. Brother Blue also advised a live, partially extempore performances of the Gilgamesh and Inanna cycle for this exhibit at the Bowers Museum
in Santa Ana, California, US.
Professor Albert Lord said that Brother Blue was "sui generis," meaning in Latin "of a kind of his own" because Brother Blue "does not really belong to any particular tradition in storytelling" but is "a phenomenon in himself."
Like the bards throughout the ages, Brother Blue was fêted by titular nobility; he is known for the poignancy of his autobiographical tale of telling stories to enthrall, cheer, and uplift an English Duchess, and his feelings of guilt and dismay upon learning of her suicide on the coattails of his departure, wondering "if only" he could have told her just the one more thing, given her the one more smile into her soul...
European-related themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: Albert Einstein, Homer, Vergil, Dante, William Shakespeare and personal favorites St. Francis of Assissi and Don Quixote, to all of whom he would compare his own, his colleagues' and his audiences' works and lives. "I bring Homer to the streets. I bring Sophocles," he said. "To tell stories, you should know Chaucer. You should know Shakespeare. You should know Keats. You have to be constantly reading. You read, you think, you create. You have to know the new moves: You must be able to rap and be able to sing the blues!".
, John Coltrane
and Robert Kennedy. Brother Blue said he wanted to be "the black Clarence Darrow
," which is why he had intended to go to law school before finding his calling at Yale School of Drama. See also African-American tradition strand, below.
Brother Blue has been frequently featured by the US National Association of Black Storytellers and is frequently referenced by the US griot movement spearheaded by such oral storyteller griots as Michael D. McCarty in Los Angeles, California, US who are extending the original West African griot tradition.
An apprentice of Brother Blue and Ruth's was welcomed with a name in the family of Purna Das Baul Samrat
, like Blue crossed over into film actor and celebrity status through contributions in his own generation as pater familias of the Bauls of Bengal, a once home-shunning caste of storytellers who similarly fuse several religious traditions; and Brother Blue and Ruth Hill contributed to early initiatives to unite storytellers globally through organizations departing from this and other links.
Telescoping Brother Blue's spiritual perspective is his recounting, included in Brother Blue: A Narrative Portrait, of spontaneously piling up a Jacob's ladder of chairs and climbing to the top of them wordlessly upon invitation of a distinguished Harvard lecturer in advanced Indian philosophies, to personify what was beyond words, as Brother Blue explains. Humanistic feeling for God recognized in our fellow creatures was increasingly emphasized in Brother Blue's personal work in his latest years, as he continued, with his wife Ruth, to encourage the fruition of storytelling both abroad and always in their own neighborhood community.
(Will E Find-it) and Learnin' Vernon the teller of Legends, Lore, and a whole lot more."
Storytelling festivals include:
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
educator, storyteller
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, musician, street performer and living icon in Boston, in Cambridge, at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, MIT, and in the global oral storytelling community. After serving as First Lieutenant from 1943-1946 in the segregated U.S. army in World War II and being honorably discharged, he received a BA from Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
in 1948 (cum laude in Social Relations), was accepted into the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the academic unit responsible for many post-baccalaureate degree programs offered through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University...
(GSAS) before transferring to receive a MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
and a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
(Divinity with pastoral sacred storytelling) from the Union Institute, having delivered his doctoral presentation at Boston's Deer Island Prison
Deer Island Prison
The Deer Island Prison in Suffolk County, Massachusetts was located on Deer Island in Boston Harbor. Also known as the Deer Island House of Industry and later, House of Correction, it held people convicted of drunkenness, illegal possession of drugs, disorderly conduct, larceny, and other crimes...
, accompanied by a 25 piece jazz orchestra, with a video recording for his dissertation committee's further consideration. While performing frequently at US National Storytelling Festivals and flown abroad by organizations and patrons from England to Russia and the Bahamas, Brother Blue regularly performed on the streets around Cambridge, most notably in Harvard Square
Harvard Square
Harvard Square is a large triangular area in the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. It is the historic center of Cambridge...
. He was the Official Storyteller of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA by resolution of both city councils, a most unusual honor, doubled.
Brother Blue was a 2009 recipient of the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal from the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute
W. E. B. Du Bois Institute
The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research is located at Harvard University and was established in 1969. It is named after W. E. B. Du Bois who was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University...
at Harvard University, named for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the first African American to earn a Harvard PhD in 1895. Brother Blue's award was accepted posthumously on his behalf by his spouse, Ruth Edmonds Hill
Ruth Edmonds Hill
Ruth Edmonds Hill is an African-American scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate and spouse of Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill who is also known as Brother Blue. Ruth Edmonds Hill is sometimes known as Sister Ruth. Her oral history office is...
, oral historian at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...
at Harvard University, on December 4, 2009, sadly a bare month after his death, for what Henry Louis Gates Jr. cited as "his desire to build a better world, one story at a time." In his performances and in private communications, Brother Blue frequently exhorted people to tell "stories that change the world," with the combination caveat-encouragement, "We want a story from your heart. If it's not from your heart, don't tell it."
Youth and Early Career
Raised in the boisterously revivalist African Methodist Episcopal church of the 1920s and 1930s, young Hugh was the grandson of a slave who heard tales of his grandfather's slavery from his father, who was a devout Christian. "My daddy wore the Bible out with his eyes," he relates, and the imprint remained through the son's own career as Brother Blue. The Hills lived in a poor area in Cleveland, Ohio, US, as one of the few black families in their neighborhood. Brother Blue recalled his childhood as a rough time, saying "I'm like a flower who grew up in rocky soil." During Sunday church services, Blue found his voice telling stories, carrying this art forward into Sunday school sessions he taught after prayer.Blue's storytelling career began with the tales he told his beloved retarded younger brother Thomas who was unable to read and write. Unable to say "Hugh" clearly, Thomas spoke his elder brother's name with a sound close to the word "Blue," a sobriquet which came to reflect Brother Blue's personal journey and in turn imbued his persona some of his public stories of his brother Thomas. History records that Thomas died young in an institution. Brother Blue's versions tell of how Thomas was "special" and mostly wanted to fly, so he climbed on the roof of the house and fell to his death. Blue muses, "Thomas...he thought he could fly, he thought could fly, so he tried." Especially in the middle portion of his career, Brother Blue would often explain that, ever grieving, he was still looking for his brother, and "he might be you."
Entering Harvard on scholarship, Brother Blue won the undergraduate Boylston Prize for his recital of a speech penned and originally orated by Haitian slave rebellion leader Toussaint L'Ouverture
Toussaint L'Ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture , also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution. His military genius and political acumen led to the establishment of the independent black state of Haiti, transforming an entire society of slaves into a free,...
. He subsequently won the Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
International Media Competition for delivering selections from The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965, the result of a collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and Malcolm X's 1965 assassination...
. Inspired by American Civil Liberties attorney Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
of Scopes Trial
Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
, son of an abolitionist family, Brother Blue initially intended to apply to law school in order to become "the black Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
." However his storytelling calling brought him successfully to Yale School of Drama's graduate school instead before obtaining his doctorate in Divinity from the Union Institute.
Iconography
Brother Blue and Ruth's ubiquitous symbol is the blue butterfly, usually styled in the wing and scale patterns of the densely blue or solid Blue MorphoBlue Morpho
The Blue Morpho refers to several species of Morpho butterfly, including:* Morpho menelaus * Morpho peleides * Morpho rhetenor...
(Morpho genus) native to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
yet admired around the world for its over 80 species, a globe-spanning welcome totem. Personally dedicated to improvisation, Brother Blue welcomed variation in its styling, acknowledging its ancient Greek association with the diversities and flights of psyche. In the later part of his career, Brother Blue constantly wore a broad breast-plate sized medallion suspended around his neck which was a gift among the butterfly tokens with which people expressed their appreciation and affection for the hills. Even then, many other butterflies from the myriad he wore through his career bedecked his whole body, and blue butterflies were frequently painted on cheeks and in the palms of his hands, with blue ballpoint pens when no other cosmetic was handy; blue butterflies in his palms are featured in his role as Merlin in the Knightriders and the camera zooms in on his butterfly hand sadly and poetically waving goodbye at the camera during a funeral at which he officiates in the film. The Morpho butterfly or large, fanciful blue hued lepidoptera grace Brother Blue's publications, media jackets, festival banners, ornamental staff, and stages. The story of a caterpillar's struggles, hopes and dreams and metamorphosis into a butterfly was one of Brother Blue's signature motifs.
Usually sporting a close-fitting hat, Brother Blue particularly favored a blue beret on which butterfly pins, some with rhinestones or sea opals, were affixed. He wore a sash emblazoned with "BROTHER BLUE STORYTELLER" in his capacity as Official Storyteller of Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Lacing his shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles and elsewhere were often curling ribbons, and he was known to carry bright blue balloons with his predominantly blue ensemble, underlying his finery with blue turtlenecks or collared shirts and blue pants. In the Judaic and Vedic and African traditions, he often appeared barefoot or would take off his shoes in the early course of a performance to touch earth as sacred ground.
Brother Blue's 2002 business card read "Storyteller, Street Poet, Soul Theater.".
Opus
"From the middle of the middle of me," Brother Blue would say, swirling his finger in magical airs in the space between you then gently tapping it toward your heart, "to the middle of the middle of you..." And he would say with growling resonance, "I am older than the oldest stories, I am the storyteller." A signature story which gave form to one face of this archetypal "storyteller" from Blue is his tale of Muddy Duddy, a fictional musician who could hear the sound of a harp coming out of the earth.Brother Blue's unique style of storytelling made extensive use of rhyme, rhythm, and improvisation, creating a verbal jazz of words and images. He referred to himself as a street poet and, in the same words as Saint Francis of Assisi, as God's fool. He told idiosyncratic versions of Shakespeare's King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, "The Big O, Othell-O" and Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, a variety of self-mythologizing autobiographical stories, and always his signature story about a caterpillar's first vision of a butterfly. MacArthur Fellow, Salzburg Festival bad boy wunderkind of revisioned theatrical works Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
(Harvard College Class of 1981) cast Brother Blue as an idiosyncratic actor in updated classical productions in such venues as The American Repertory Theater.
Brother Blue's PhD, spanning the seminary work of Harvard Divinity School and the Episcopal Divinity School
Episcopal Divinity School
The Episcopal Divinity School is a seminary of the Episcopal Church based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known throughout the Anglican Communion for prophetic teaching and action on issues of civil rights and social justice, its faculty and students have been directly involved in many of the social...
and oral storytelling through the Union Institute, ministering to civil prisoners while performing for and out of their trials so he could "tell the greatest stories to those in the greatest need," typified the highly multifaith homilies his stories would sometimes include.
As an educator, Brother Blue taught at the Episcopal and Harvard Divinity Schools, then with Ruth Hill in the Harvard Storytelling Workshop held in venues across Harvard University's campus, on television through WGBH, and in his most casual later forum, Storytelling with Brother Blue.
The epic in the human situation, fundamental issues of birth, love, loss of siblings, anguish, death, subjective ugliness, impairment, imprisonment, divinity, freedom, imagination, daring, yearning, and the discontent which transforms social roles, conveyed through the most ancient of story cycles, African and Franco-Welsh legend, Shakespeare, modern jazz interpretations, and post-post-modern improvisation reaching directly to epic gestalt through even humble incidents are an enduring weight in Brother Blue's compositions, performance, professing in academia and in practica.
Often these grand themes would pour through picaresque characters, though also through socially high profile characters portrayed such as Othello or unnamed archetypal personalities such as the Old Storyteller or This Little Girl or Someone Who's Somewhere Everywhere.
Heuristics and Story Coaching Methodology
With great controversy, Brother Blue's refusal, at a phase of his evolution, to give grades to graduate students in university courses he taught, and then his formal adoption of an ethic of not "criticising" in the usual senses but effusively "appreciating" and mainly "saying thank you" in response to performances he proctored, coached, or judged, set him even farther along the liberal humanist spectrum of oral storytelling critiquing whose kindly edge was otherwise defined in his later lifetime by the work of Doug Lipman's guidelines for Story Dynamics coaching, which filled out further in the eulogistic direction of Brother Blue's radical stance by Lipman's middle period schema in his collaboration with Jay O'CallahanJay O'Callahan
Jay O'Callahan is a prominent American storyteller for people of all ages. He has performed at numerous national and international storytelling festivals, in theaters worldwide, and on the radio. He performs almost exclusively material of his own authorship. He has recorded many of his oral...
among Brother Blue's internationally influential League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES) colleagues who treat this subject systematically within the oral storytelling field as well as in corporate consultation toward realizing human potential. Cautious of "the green dance" himself, Brother Blue eschewed the world of commerce and economics as much as the formality of numericalized aptitude assessment, and explained that he preferred to address people "in their wonderfulness" regardless of their situation and the tentativeness of their product and expression, calling on their individual superlativeness.
Improvisation was a pervasive element in Brother Blue's performances and one of the chief skills he nourished in others. "I call it cosmic jazz. I don't repeat myself, I don't write it down, you can't get it in a book, in a book" he said (2008).
In the early and middle parts of his career, Brother Blue practiced Calling the Muse to open any gathering of storytellers or storytelling.
Tradition Strand: Universal traditions
Universal themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: caterpillar, metamorphosis and butterflyButterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
(which gave its ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
sense to modern concepts of psyche
Psyche
- Psychology :* Psyche , a concept of intangible self* Psyche , a periodical on the study of consciousness* Soul in the Bible, or psyche , spirit or soul in philosophy and theology- Art :...
)
Brother Blue believed that telling stories is itself a divine calling. "I think I was anointed to be a storyteller—I mean touched by the fire," he said. "I can tell stories in my sleep and blow the world away!" Avowing that he was "working on greatness!" he described what he sought from everyone as "stories to change the world." He declared that "Love will overcome all in this world. Love’s gonna win. Nothing can stop this. There will be these fools that come along, and I don’t mind being that fool, who is trying to express that. I have this madness—volition—this chosen madness to believe that I can change this world". "Storytelling is a sacred art," he emphasized. "And the irony of it is that most people—if you say that—back away. They want to be amused mostly, or have a way of passing a little time. Not Blue. Even when I'm trying to be funny, I'm trying to give you my soul. That's strong".
Tradition Strand: Music and Song and the European Bardic tradition
Brother Blue's chief musical instruments were harmonica and human voice, and occasionally tambourine, drums, and the gnashing of chains, featuring genuine early American slave chains he used in an early signature story developed in performance to his class while he was a Divinity School teaching fellow. Finger snapping, stomping and dancing, often barefoot, are featured in many of his performances.At Harvard, Brother Blue studied under Albert Bates Lord who was, with Milman Parry
Milman Parry
Milman Parry was a scholar of epic poetry and the founder of the discipline of oral tradition.-Biography:He was born in 1902 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Sorbonne . A student of the linguist Antoine Meillet at the Sorbonne, Parry revolutionized Homeric studies...
, among the coterie of those who compared the methods of the most venerable surviving contemporary Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
and Eastern Mediterranean
Eastern Mediterranean
The Eastern Mediterranean is a term that denotes the countries geographically to the east of the Mediterranean Sea. This region is also known as Greater Syria or the Levant....
bardic tellers of traditional sagas with the language and content and literary formats of the Homeric epics
Homeric epics
In the field of classics, the term "Homeric epics" refers specifically to the Iliad and Odyssey, two epics attributed to the Ancient Greek poet Homer...
, concluding that Homeric works derived from or were transcribed out of oral storytelling forms, as ultimately documented in The Singer of Tales (1960) These were themes in global mythography, contemporary with work such as that of Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
and Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
which Brother Blue addressed in his training of others. Albert Lord's 1954 class also led Herbert Mason
Herbert Mason
-Director:* The First Offence * His Lordship * East Meets West * Take My Tip * Strange Boarders * The Silent Battle * A Window in London * Dr. O'Dowd...
to write his intensely personal Gilgamesh, A Verse Narrative (1970) as Mason's own bosom young friend lay deathly ill, and which was narrated for accompaniment to the international museum exhibit, Treasures of the Royal Tombs of Ur, with dedication to both Mason and the Hills by a student of Brother Blue and Ruth Hill as Gilgamesh: God King of Sumer, The Oldest Story in the World, along with Diane Wolkstein's portrayal of Inanna. Brother Blue also advised a live, partially extempore performances of the Gilgamesh and Inanna cycle for this exhibit at the Bowers Museum
Bowers Museum
The Bowers Museum is located in Santa Ana, California, in Orange County. The museum offers exhibitions, lectures, art classes, travel programs, children’s art and music education programs, and other community events...
in Santa Ana, California, US.
Professor Albert Lord said that Brother Blue was "sui generis," meaning in Latin "of a kind of his own" because Brother Blue "does not really belong to any particular tradition in storytelling" but is "a phenomenon in himself."
Like the bards throughout the ages, Brother Blue was fêted by titular nobility; he is known for the poignancy of his autobiographical tale of telling stories to enthrall, cheer, and uplift an English Duchess, and his feelings of guilt and dismay upon learning of her suicide on the coattails of his departure, wondering "if only" he could have told her just the one more thing, given her the one more smile into her soul...
European-related themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: Albert Einstein, Homer, Vergil, Dante, William Shakespeare and personal favorites St. Francis of Assissi and Don Quixote, to all of whom he would compare his own, his colleagues' and his audiences' works and lives. "I bring Homer to the streets. I bring Sophocles," he said. "To tell stories, you should know Chaucer. You should know Shakespeare. You should know Keats. You have to be constantly reading. You read, you think, you create. You have to know the new moves: You must be able to rap and be able to sing the blues!".
Tradition Strand: US pan-cultural traditions
US historical and cultural themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: Bob DylanBob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Robert Kennedy. Brother Blue said he wanted to be "the black Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
," which is why he had intended to go to law school before finding his calling at Yale School of Drama. See also African-American tradition strand, below.
Tradition Strand: African-American and African traditions
African-American and African-related themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: "a chicken with a busted wing," lions, elephants, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., B.B. King. Blue spoke about skin color and racial issues, and being an African American during his own true life adventures.Brother Blue has been frequently featured by the US National Association of Black Storytellers and is frequently referenced by the US griot movement spearheaded by such oral storyteller griots as Michael D. McCarty in Los Angeles, California, US who are extending the original West African griot tradition.
Tradition Strand: Asian traditions
Asian-related themes, lore, personalities, motifs and penumbra referenced in Brother Blue's opus include: God, Allah, Moses, Imams, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Indian metaphysics.An apprentice of Brother Blue and Ruth's was welcomed with a name in the family of Purna Das Baul Samrat
Purna Das Baul Samrat
Purnachandra Das Baul Samrat , Chief Baul of Bengal , popularly known as Purna Das Baul Samrat...
, like Blue crossed over into film actor and celebrity status through contributions in his own generation as pater familias of the Bauls of Bengal, a once home-shunning caste of storytellers who similarly fuse several religious traditions; and Brother Blue and Ruth Hill contributed to early initiatives to unite storytellers globally through organizations departing from this and other links.
Telescoping Brother Blue's spiritual perspective is his recounting, included in Brother Blue: A Narrative Portrait, of spontaneously piling up a Jacob's ladder of chairs and climbing to the top of them wordlessly upon invitation of a distinguished Harvard lecturer in advanced Indian philosophies, to personify what was beyond words, as Brother Blue explains. Humanistic feeling for God recognized in our fellow creatures was increasingly emphasized in Brother Blue's personal work in his latest years, as he continued, with his wife Ruth, to encourage the fruition of storytelling both abroad and always in their own neighborhood community.
Blue Circle Living Legacy Community
Artists and individuals in a notable diversity of fields credit Brother Blue and Ruth Hill (ever present when Brother Blue spoke or performed, and occasionally his collaborator in content while also leading her own oral history research projects), as their mentors, teachers, and family of choice, and consciously derive new works inspired by his methods, ministry, and traditions. The Hills have influenced a host of others through their work who explicitly cite them in propagating principles and memes to further creators and audiences. Many are storytellers of all media, too numerous to catalog completely, count themselves among the members of the Blue family or extended circle.Collaborators
Brother Blue, and with him in many instances Ruth Edmonds Hill have collaborated and advised the development of organizations, and have collaborated in creative and editorial works and in performance design.- GSN international story network
- Rav Sylvia Bar (Sefardi Kabbalist), Sacred Storytellers Congregation
Interdisciplinary Blue Circle
Outlining a small sampling of the breadth of Brother Blue's influence upon legacy artists, ministers, physicians to the human condition, activists and educators in less obvious fields who are satellites of the Blue circle, some vociferous members include, among thousands of others:- Forbes Black, Editor of Cycloculture.com and West Coast Contributing Editor at EVWorld.com.
- Eric Bornstein and Behind the Mask Studio (www.behindthemask.org) and puppetPuppetA puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
performance troupe who have created the Mardi Gras float sized puppets of Brother Blue's head and each hand as well as multiple giant butterflies which are paraded in the annual Charles River Festival along the Charles RiverCharles RiverThe Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, US and elsewhere - Kevin M. Brooks, MIT Media LabMIT Media LabThe MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
Metalinear Cinematic Narrative Engineer at MotorolaMotorolaMotorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... - Guy Davis, jazzJazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
performer who has told Brother Blue's original "Muddy Duddy" story for a United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
audience - Curtis K. Deutsch, Ph.D., Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, McLean HospitalMcLean HospitalMcLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research...
(known for psychiatric research), Children's HospitalChildren's HospitalChildren's Hospital is the name for many hospitals that care for children including:*Arkansas Children's Hospital*Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center*Children's Hospital *Children's Hospital...
(Boston, Massachusetts, US), Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.... - Norah Dooley, whose children's books are listed in The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children and who has received the Social StudiesSocial studiesSocial studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the American National Council for the Social Studies...
Honor Book award by the Society of School Librarians International - Stephen Jay GouldStephen Jay GouldStephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
, paleontologist, developer with Niles EldredgeNiles EldredgeNiles Eldredge is an American paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972.-Education:...
of the theory of punctuated equilibriumPunctuated equilibriumPunctuated equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis...
in evolutionary biology - Chris Halpin, Ph.D., Massachusetts Eye and Ear InfirmaryMassachusetts Eye and Ear InfirmaryMassachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, known locally as Mass. Eye and Ear, is a specialty hospital providing patient care for disorders of the eye, ear, nose, throat, head and neck. Founded in 1824, MEEI is an international leader in Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology research and a teaching partner of...
, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, faculty of Harvard-MIT Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology and Boston UniversityBoston UniversityBoston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers... - Seamus HeaneySeamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
, Nobel Laureate in Literature, Irish poet, author of a critically acclaimed modern verse translation of BeowulfBeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single... - Seth J. Itzkan, entrepreneurial communications technologistTechnologistAn engineering technologist, is a specialist devoted to the implementation of existing technology within a field of engineering. Technologists often work with engineers in a wide variety of projects by applying basic engineering principles and technical skills...
whose work includes MIT and Harvard applications - Kamala, aromatherapist, intercultural homeopath and perfumerPerfumerA perfumer is a term used for an expert on creating perfume compositions, sometimes referred to affectionately as a Nose due to their fine sense of smell and skill in producing olfactory compositions...
- Warren Lehrer, sociologist, biographer, multimediaMultimediaMultimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
designer, photographer, professor - Harlem F. Logan, motion picture producer and director
- Andrea Lovett, US living historyLiving historyLiving history is an activity that incorporates historical tools, activities and dress into an interactive presentation that seeks to give observers and participants a sense of stepping back in time. Although it does not necessarily seek to reenact a specific event in history, living history is...
re-enacter and original scriptwriter, conflict resolutionConflict resolutionConflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
communications consultant, co-winner of the Brother Blue (Hugh Morgan Hill) and Ruth Hill Award, 2010 - Julian Henry Lowenfeld, Russian literatureRussian literatureRussian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...
commentator whose family first translated Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
's works into German - Laura Packer, folklorist, storytelling community dean, a leading foster mother-sister in the Blue family circle
- Rev. Peter Panagore, First Radio Parish Church of America
- Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., LCSW, LMFT, founder of Center For Family Connections, Inc., Adoption Resource Center, Pre/Post Adoption Consulting Team, and Family Connections Training Institute
- Rev. Hank Peirce, Unitarian Universalist Church
- Christopher Pineau, Goth
- Jovan Rameau, stage and motion picture actorActorAn actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
- Kabir Sen, hip hopHip hopHip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
artist and piano accompanist, called "hip hop's intellectual face" by DNA. - Zjar Uruluzu, futurist, interfaithInterfaithThe term interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels...
liturgist, author of the opening invocation for Ahhhh! A Tribute to Brother Blue & Ruth Edmonds Hill - Rev. Karl White, Progressive Christian minister
- Howard ZinnHoward ZinnHoward Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
, historian, playwright, Professor of Political Science at Boston University, civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and anti-warAnti-warAn anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
activist, author of the best-selling A People's History of the United StatesA People's History of the United StatesChapter 7, "As Long As Grass Grows or Water Runs" discusses 19th century conflicts between the U.S. government and Native Americans and Indian removal, especially during the administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren....
Oral Storytellers
Almost all of the circle members noted in the succeeding section on the Interdisciplinary Blue Circle are also at least oral storytellers. Oral storytellers, by nature public figures in communities or on the world stage, are colleagues who have been colinearly involved in the Hills' work, many with substantial opi of their own in which both explicit and subtler strands of Blue circle influence continue to be drivers, inspiration, or themes. Some who strongly identify with belonging to the Blue circle and who are not noted separately under other headings, include among thousands:- Vernon Cox, "Maine humorist, motivational speaker, and storyteller" who performs as "Tall Taleoligist Willey Phinedit
(Will E Find-it) and Learnin' Vernon the teller of Legends, Lore, and a whole lot more."
- Jane Crouse, 'Universal Storyteller,' Mid-Atlantic Regional Director, US National Storytelling Network
- Marianne Donnelly
Awards
- W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, 2009
- National Storytelling Network Lifetime Achievement Award, 1999, “for sustained and exemplary contributions to storytelling in America”. Steve Kardaleff, interim executive director of the US National Storytelling Network introduced Brother Blue's award with “His mother is verse, rhythm and rhyme, and his father is reportedly inverse time.” A nominator had described Brother GBlue as “a walking, talking, living legend.”
- League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES) Brother Blue (Hugh Morgan Hill) and Ruth Hill Award, 2002, founding recipient, an annual award named for Brother Blue and Ruth Hill and honoring extraordinary commitment to and support of storytelling and storytellers. Brother Blue described this award's purpose as "To honor those who give their lives to storytelling to change the world."
- Cambridge Center for Adult EducationCambridge Center for Adult EducationThe Cambridge Center for Adult Education , a non-profit corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been teaching adult education courses at 42 Brattle Street since taking over the building from the Cambridge Social Union in 1938...
Anne BradstreetAnne BradstreetAnne Dudley Bradstreet was New England's first published poet. Her work met with a positive reception in both the Old World and the New World.-Biography:...
Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000 for “contributions to the poetry community.” - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Peace Commission Peace and Justice Award,1999
- US National Storytelling Association Circle of Excellence Award, 1996
- US National Association of Black Storytellers Esteemed Elder, 1995
- US National Association of Black Storytellers Zora Neale Hurston Award, 1986
- Boston Music Awards “Best of Boston” award for Best Street Performance, 1982
- Corporation for Public BroadcastingCorporation for Public BroadcastingThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress, funded by the United States’ federal government to promote public broadcasting...
Local Programming Award, 1975 - WGBHWGBH-TVWGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
Special Citation for Outstanding Solo Performance on Public Radio, for “Miss Wunderlich,” which he told on “The Spider’s Web” (WGBH, Boston), 1975 - Walt WhitmanWalt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
International Media Competition winner, circa 1940s, Poetry on Sound Tape award for delivering selections from The Autobiography of Malcolm XThe Autobiography of Malcolm XThe Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965, the result of a collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and Malcolm X's 1965 assassination... - Boylston Prize, circa 1945 for recital of a speech by Haitian slave rebellion leader Toussaint L'OuvertureToussaint L'OuvertureFrançois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture , also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution. His military genius and political acumen led to the establishment of the independent black state of Haiti, transforming an entire society of slaves into a free,...
.
- Brother Blue was also posterboy for the Spoleto Festival USASpoleto Festival USASpoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
in Charleston, South Carolina, USA
Performances and Bibliography
- "Brother Blue: Storyteller" and similar program titles, Cambridge Community Television regular series and special features; twice weekly slots in the 2000s (live and recorded, principally 1980s, 1990s, 2000s)
- Ahhhh! A Tribute to Brother Blue & Ruth Edmonds Hill, ed. Robert Smyth (Yellow Moon Press, September 2003, ISBN 978-0-938756-67-5) features contributions by Romero as well as such authors as Nobel Laureate in Literature Seamus HeaneySeamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
, paleontologist Stephen Jay GouldStephen Jay GouldStephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
, historian and playwright Howard ZinnHoward ZinnHoward Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
, Ossie DavisOssie DavisOssie Davis was an American film actor, director, poet, playwright, writer, and social activist.-Early years:...
, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. He was the first African American to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and...
, and fellow storytellers Utah PhillipsUtah PhillipsBruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips was a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist...
, Linda Goss, Jay O'CallahanJay O'CallahanJay O'Callahan is a prominent American storyteller for people of all ages. He has performed at numerous national and international storytelling festivals, in theaters worldwide, and on the radio. He performs almost exclusively material of his own authorship. He has recorded many of his oral...
, and Diane Wolkstein.
- Brother Blue: A Narrative Portrait of Brother Blue A.K.A. Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill (Portrait Series) by Warren Lehrer (Bay Press, WA, October 1995, ISBN 978-0-941920-36-0) is over 10 inches tall but only 4 inches wide, and offers several of Brother Blue's stories captured with Warren's imaginative and quite effectual typesetting.
- “Miss Wunderlich” in Jump Up and Say: A Collection of Black Storytelling (Simon and Schuster, 1995) and in Homespun, Tales from America’s Favorite Storytellers (Crown Publishers, 1988)
- “The Rainbow Child” in Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope (New Society Publishers, 1992)
- “The Butterfly” in Talk That Talk, an Anthology of African-American Storytelling (Simon and Schuster, 1989)
- New Age Conference, Florence, Italy (live, 1988)
- “Muddy Duddy” in The Wide World All Around (Longman, 1987)
- UNICEF pavilion, 1984 World’s Fair, New Orleans, Louisiana, US (live, 1984)
- "Breaking Chains: Brother Blue, Storyteller" by John Cech, Children's Literature (journal) Volume 9, 1981 (E-ISSN: 1543-3374 Print ISSN: 0092-8208)
- Brother Blue appeared as Merlin in KnightridersKnightridersKnightriders is a 1981 film written and directed by George A. Romero. It was filmed entirely on location in Pennsylvania, especially in Fawn Township and Natrona...
directed by George A. RomeroGeorge A. RomeroGeorge Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
(1981), a film crafted from the King Arthur story in modern setting, and is memorable for waving farewell at the funeral of a motorcycle rider with his trademark dark blue butterfly drawn in his hand.
- New Age Conference, Florence, Italy (live, 1978)
- Official Storyteller, United Nations Habitat, Vancouver, British Columbia, CA (live, 1976)
- Boston’s First Night (live, 1974–2009, every year since its inception)
- radio shows, Japan
- Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, New York, US
- New York Folk Festival, New York, US
- Artscape, Baltimore, Maryland, US
- Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee, US
- National Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, Tennessee, US
- Africa in April, Memphis, Tennessee, US
- American Imagery Conference
- American Academy of Psychotherapists
- Sacred Dance Guild
Storytelling festivals include:
- Mariposa Festival, Toronto, Ontario, CA
- Toronto Festival of Storytelling, Toronto, Ontario, CA
- Vancouver Storytelling Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia, CA
- Yukon Storytelling Festival, Yukon Territory, CA
- Day for Sam, Wrentham, Massachusetts, US, a festival commemorating the life and death of a five-year-old boy
- Sharing the Fire, sponsored by the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling
- Corn island Storytelling Festival, Louisville, Kentucky, US
- In the Tradition… festival/conference of the US National Association of Black Storytellers, held in a different city each year
Principal Sites and Publishers
- Official Brother Blue website
- The Internet Movie Database (IMDb): Brother Blue, actor
- Yellow Moon Press, Somerville, Massachusetts, US
- Bay Press, formerly in Seattle, Washington, US
Media
- http://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/30326Video: same link to Brother Blue acting the part of Merlin in George A. RomeroGeorge A. RomeroGeorge Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
's KnightridersKnightridersKnightriders is a 1981 film written and directed by George A. Romero. It was filmed entirely on location in Pennsylvania, especially in Fawn Township and Natrona...
feature film but with commentary by Cambridge Community Television which is lacking under the YouTube Video], a then-new organization for Massachusetts-based Storytellers (2008, August 11), delivered at Toscanini's Ice Cream in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Clips of Brother Blue from the National Association of Black Storytellers Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, US (2007) and in Cincinnati, Ohio, US (2008). "I call it cosmic jazz. I don't repeat myself, I don't write it down, you can't get it in a book, in a book." by Brother Blue (2007 or earlier) - Video: Super BeLive! (2005, 25:41) by Brother Blue with harmonica, beatnik-genre poetic speculation performance (2003, February 23) within a live-broadcast variety show, staged at The Middle East Restaurant & Nightclub in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Ricardo Frota provides musical accompaniment on a handmade violin. The show was broadcast live to Cambridge and Somerville, MA residents via cable TV Public-access televisionPublic-access televisionPublic-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
, Cambridge Community Television and Somerville Cable Access Television., 04:50 excerpt (2000s?) filmed by Kevin Brooks by Brother Blue during Storytelling With Brother Blue hosted by the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US (2000s) filmed by Seth Itzkan by Brother Blue, "Brother Blue Crossroads of the World" (1990s-2000s?) in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US where the central sculpture by a Greek sculptor resident at Harvard University was designed as an Omphalos, a Navel of the World. at National Association of Black Storytellers (1990s-2000s?, 02:21) by Brother Blue at Mass Art (1991, April 21), taking off his socks as he often did during the beginning of a performance by Brother Blue at Mass Art (1991, April 21), Earthday
Contemporaneous Citations
- "Tales of Brother Blue," Boston Globe, December 30, 2008
- Interview with Brother Blue and Ruth Hill on Street Storytelling, 2007
- "Spinning a Blue Yarn," Harvard Crimson, April 5, 2002
- The Story of Brother Blue: A Teller of Classics; A Road Less Traveled, 2001
Obituaries
- Psychology Today: The Passing of Brother Blue, but not without a story.
- NECN: Brother Blue Obituary clip
- WBUR: Brother Blue Cambridge’s Street Storyteller, Dead at 88
- Boston Globe: Obit Hugh M. Hill weaved stories as Brother Blue
- Harvard Crimson: Brother Blue, Street Performer, Storyteller Dies at 88
- Boston.com: Obit Brother Blue
- City Paper: Warren Lehrer on Brother Blue
- Cambridge Community Television: In Memory of Brother Blue
Tributes
, Behind The Mask's first annual tribute to beloved Cambridge storyteller Brother Blue at the Cambridge River Festival., Seth's Brother Blue Tribute - Full (2010, February 12) devoted debut story performance by Seth Itzkan, Brother Blue official website founder, as a eulogy honoring Brother Blue.] - rough cut, Norah Dooley at Park Street Station underground, Boston metro subway system (2010, January 1)- Facebook: A Living Tribute to Brother Blue (2009 and ongoing)
- Radio: 'SpotLight' On Brother Blue-Tribute: Angel Naphtalie, Angel 7 Productions, WCCR/CCTV cable radio show (2009, December 11) on Brother Blue-Tribute: Angel Naphtalie, Angel 7 Productions, WCCR/CCTV cable radio show (2009, December 11, 04:24)]
- Television: Remembering Brother Blue, Cambridge Community Television
- Boston Globe: Eulogy Brother Blue remembered for compassion (2009, November 9).
- http://storiesforblue.blogspot.com/Text, Images, Links: massmouth's Stories For Blue (begun 2009, July 4)This space has been created to honor Br. Blue and Ruth Hill for the tremendous dedication to the community of storytellers in New England and throughout the world. It is our hope that in this blog storytellers that choose to dedicate their performances to Br. Blue will have a chance to chronicle them here in photos and print.]
- Book: Ahhhh! A Tribute to Brother Blue & Ruth Edmonds Hill, ed. Robert Smyth (Yellow Moon Press, September 2003, ISBN 978-0-938756-67-5) features contributions by Romero as well as such authors as Nobel Laureate in Literature Seamus Heaney, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, historian and playwright Howard Zinn, Ossie Davis, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and fellow storytellers Utah Phillips, Linda Goss, Jay O'Callahan, and Diane Wolkstein.
Posthumous Citations
- http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/du-bois-institute/In the footsteps of Du Bois: Eight awarded medals for lifetime achievement (2009, December 7), announcement of W.E.B. Du Bois Medal awards. Keyworded: "Eight receive W.E.B. Du Bois Medals for aiding African-American culture, including Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Hugh M. “Brother Blue” Hill..." (whose award was announced during his lifetime, and was formally accepted posthumously by Ruth Edmonds Hill on Brother Blue's behalf.]
- Book of Memories for Brother Blue, condolences, remembrances, and periodically relit virtual memorial candles hosted by O'Keefe Funeral Home