When Musical Family Tree founder Jeb Banner asks an average person about their favorite Indiana musicians, they usually say John Mellencamp or Michael Jackson. Maybe they’ll bring up a cover band.
Banner said there’s a general lack of awareness for original, modern and local music. Musical Family Tree could fix that. Since its founding, the nonprofit has digitized more than 100,000 recordings for free and supported performing opportunities for local musicians.
“To me, it's that pride in knowing that something that came out of our culture, out of our ecosystem, and we help support it,” Banner said.
Musical Family Tree’s roots date back to Bloomington's ‘90s rock scene. After working at the long-gone Second Story Nightclub in Bloomington and recording live shows, Banner’s collection grew.
“One night, February of 2004, I just put everything on a website that I built, and I launched a website called musicalfamilytree.org,” Banner said. “I sent it out to my friends from Bloomington — all my musician friends — and they started sending me CDs in the mail.”
It snowballed into the proper nonprofit Musical Family Tree is today, Banner said.
Now with a rebuilt archive, Banner said Musical Family Tree joined forces with the Monroe County Public Library to bring it to even more people.
“To me, there's so much good music coming out of Indiana,” Banner said. “It's really a shame that more people don't know about it.”
Today, the archive houses recordings from more than 1,700 Indiana bands and artists. Musicians can upload music online in an archive searchable by name, genre and city.
“MFT is kind of unique, because it actually, really is controlled by the artist,” Banner said.
Kati Taylor, an independent local music and arts creative strategist, serves as the Board Observer for Musical Family Tree. Taylor said the archive project has evolved to encapsulate music from the entire state and from every genre.
“It really is local music everywhere for everyone,” Taylor said. “The diversity in the music, and the people, and the culture, and all of these things that make Indiana music so special is really what Musical Family Tree is about.”
Musical Family Tree has supported live music events for two decades — it hosted its first festival in Indianapolis in 2005. But Taylor said lately, the nonprofit has gained more momentum.
“Local artists are hungry for opportunities,” Taylor said.
Musical Family Tree selected five bands and artists as the first-ever recipients of its studio recording grant, giving the winners access to studio space at Postal Recording. Other projects include paying women in music to perform around Indianapolis for the WNBA All-Star series and setting up 13 busking stations for Taylor Swift concerts in Indianapolis.
Most recently, an all-ages showcase in Indianapolis featured local artists in a new venue, The 808.
“Not everyone is a musician, not everyone can make music, but everyone can relate with music,” Taylor said.
Part of Musical Family Tree’s mission is to encourage people to make more music, Banner said.
“It's a great joy to make music and to play for other people,” Banner said. “So, we want a lot of people to be inspired to pick that guitar back up, write that song they've been meaning to write and share it with the world.”
