Terry Blade’s “Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues” Earns Major Honors from Shorty Impact Awards and Anthem Awards

Denver, Colorado Nov 21, 2025 (Issuewire.com) Blade Arthouse Media announces that Chicago-based multimedia artist and singer-songwriter Terry Blade has earned significant international recognition in 2025 for his blues-archive project Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues.

The project has been honored at the 10th Annual Shorty Impact Awards and the 2025 Anthem Awards, underscoring Blades growing status as a cultural preservationist and independent creative force.

• Shorty Impact Awards (2025) Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues

  • Winner Arts & Culture

  • Gold Honoree Audio & Music

• Anthem Awards (2025) Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues

  • Silver Winner Education, Art & Culture: Special Projects

These 2025 accolades place Blade alongside global brands, major nonprofits, and top creative agencies while he operates as a fully independent, artist-led studio.

A Living Archive of Chicago Blues

Released in February 2025, Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues is an audio-based ethnographic project. Blade stages an intergenerational call-and-response dialogue across time by fusing:

• His original blues songs;

• With 1977 interview recordings in the public domain of Chicago blues figures like Theresa Needham, James 'Muddy Waters Jr.' Williams, Jimmy Walker, Walter 'Lefty Dizz' Williams, and Willie Monroe, sourced from the US Library of Congress; and

• His stripped-down Delta blues rendition of Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup's "That's All Right."

The project plays like a documentary in album form: archival voices are interwoven within and between songs, turning static field recordings into a continuous, narrative immersive listening experience that bridges past and present.

Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues is as much about contemporary folklife as it is about heritage preservation, said Blade. Its a way of putting real Chicago blues elders back in the room with us not as ghosts in a museum, but as people still speaking to whats happening in our communities right now.

The work confronts contemporary issues including American injustice and Chicago gun violence through the lens of the blues, using historical voices as witnesses and co-authors of the narrative.

Why These 2025 Honors Matter

The Shorty Impact Awards recognize social impact work across digital and social media, judged by leaders from major platforms, entertainment companies, and advocacy organizations. The Arts & Culture win positions Chicago Kinfolk as a benchmark project for cultural preservation and heritage storytelling, while the Gold Honor in Audio & Music highlights its craft in sound design and audio narrative.

The Anthem Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, honor purpose- and mission-driven work worldwide. A Silver in Education, Art & Culture: Special Projects marks Chicago Kinfolk as a serious contribution to public education and cultural memory, not just to the music industry.

Together, these 2025 honors:

• Validate Blades role as an independent cultural archivist, not just a recording artist

• Place Chicago Kinfolk in the same conversation as large-scale, institutionally funded campaigns

• Strengthen the albums standing as a teachable, curatable cultural document (it has already been added to multiple French public library digital collections).

About Terry Blade

Terry Blade is a Chicago-based, cross-disciplinary artist whose work blends blues, soul, folk, Americana, and experimental storytelling. His catalog includes projects such as American Descendant of Slavery, the Album, Neo Queer, Ethos: Son of a Sharecropper, and Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues, each functioning as a sonic archive of identity, history, and social commentary.