“I don’t even really think of myself as an educator,” Spencer Bohren humbly states, “I’m just an artist.” Tell that to the thousands of students who have benefited from Bohren’s “Down the Dirt Road Blues” performance lectures. On January 23, he’ll receive The Blues Foundation’s prestigious Keeping the Blues Alive Award in Education in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Down the Dirt Road Blues” follows a single song through 400 years of American history, in the process tracing the evolution of the blues. ...