Scott Barretta is best known as a Blues music journalist, historian, and instructor at the University of Mississippi focussed on researching and teaching Blues music history, Southern studies, the civil rights movement, race, sociology and anthropology. Barretta studied sociology focussing on historical comparative studies of political issues, later completing a dissertation on homelessness during the Great Depression at University of Virginia. He studied a Ph.D. at Lund University, Sweden, but had to switch topic, in part because homelessness was not an issue in Sweden, instead opting to study music. Barretta became editor at the Swedish 'Jefferson Blues Magazine' from 1996-1999, then an editor at Chicago based 'Living Blues' magazine from 1999-2003. Barretta has written for the 'Clarion-Ledger' and 'Mississippi Today' and various magazines, co-hosted the blues radio show 'Highway 61' for over a decade on Mississippi Public Radio and written and researched for the 'Mississippi Blues Trail'. He has contributed to exhibits for the B.B. King Museum, many album liner notes, co-founded the University of Mississippi’s Blues Today Symposium and was involved in establishing the Grammy Museum in Cleveland, Mississippi.

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