Michael Cala

I have been writing and photographing professionally for most of my adult life. For the past 13, I have been a writer-producer and photographer for Internet content and multimedia for ad agencies, nonprofits, and The Mount Sinai Medical Center (as associate director of communications). 

I also co-produce traditional music concerts in a historic Brooklyn venue. I write for the New York Journal of Books, Blues Music Magazine (print), the former Blues Revue, Sing Out! and several other music and online publications covering American roots music, history, and culture.

I have written extensively about the history, music, and popular culture of 19th and 20th century America. I am very comfortable using social media, and recently used a combination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Instagram to promote my current charity -- successfully raising funds for a headstone for pioneering blues performer Mamie Smith, who has been buried in unmarked ground on Staten Island for 68 years until I purchased a headstone for her in Septermber, 2014.

I have written book, music, and concert reviews and features for Blues Revue and SING OUT! magazines from 2001-2012. Recent full-length features include a profile of blues musicians Marcia Ball and Don Bennett, and another on the amazingly young blues band, The Homemade Jamz Blues Band, out of Tupelo, Mississippi.

I have also written about art photography and photographic technique for Camera 35, Photo, and Modern Photography. I was recently inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame for my dozen years as a blues and traditional music journalist.