The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center seems to have struck a sweet note of collaboration. On Thursday, Bob Santelli, founding executive director of the Grammy museums, announced that the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center has become the newest official member of the Grammy museums family. The Indianola facility is now part of the Grammy Museums’ Affiliate Program.
“This is a great opportunity for the B.B. King Museum because we will be able to market the B.B. King Museum in places like New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles and where ever else we have Grammy Museum affiliates and Grammy Museum outposts,” Santelli said.
He said the affiliate’s program is really about connecting the Grammy Museum-Mississippi and the Grammy Museum-Los Angeles with the B.B. King Museum and the other affiliates around the world like the Beatles’ Story in Liverpool, England, the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica and the Ray Charles Museum in Los Angeles.
“Together we’ll work to create common education programs, share ideas in terms of marketing and education, really come together, not just as professionals, but kind of like a musical family as well,” said Santelli.
Santelli said they have been waiting quite a while to actually make this happen and they are honored to bring the B.B. King Museum into the Grammy family. “This is a big deal because we don’t select just any museums, we look for museums that have similar missions that we do, that are very strong on education, that are able to reflect high quality in terms of their exhibitions and the B.B. King Museum does all of that,” he said.
Santelli asserted that they have great expectations of the relationship. “The B.B. King Museum will be able to use the resources of the Grammy family to help promote their program and bring artists here to let the world know this is a great museum and it just so happens to be in Mississippi and they need to come down and see it.”
Malika Polk-Lee, executive director of the B.B. King Museum said, “The added exposure from this designation will be invaluable as we are added to the Grammy Museum’s website and social media outlets.”
Polk-Lee said she and the board made the decision to join the Grammy affiliates late last year but were trying to choose the best time to make the announcement. She said once they realized the benefits of the association the decision was unanimous.
Polk-Lee assured that the collaboration is merely a means of gaining extra exposure for the museum and enhancing its educational resources but will in no wise affect the identity of the museum. She said the facility is still its own separate stand-alone entity.
Now that the museum is associated with the Grammy Museum, Santelli said one of the first things they plan to do is bring the local B.B. King representatives to California for their annual conference. “Once a year all of the affiliates get together and meet for two or three days to tackle common challenges in marketing, education, promotions artist relations and etc.,” Santelli said.
He said lots of partnerships and ideas happen during those meetings. Santelli stated that the meeting is an opportunity to share in discussions on how they can make all of their museums better and more successful in terms of meeting audience expectation and teacher expectations.
