50 Tales for 50 Years: Lewis McTush – American Nonsmokers’ Rights Basis

Remembering an ANR Smokefree Hero

Lewis McTush dropped at mild a easy fact: the blues can’t survive with out the individuals who play it. And the individuals who play it have been being slowly, quietly poisoned.

Identified to everybody within the music world fondly as “Mr. McTush,” he spent years as a fixture in Atlanta’s leisure trade, working in music promotion and constructing deep roots within the blues neighborhood. He watched musicians evening after evening take the stage in smoke-filled golf equipment and bars, inhaling clouds of secondhand smoke as the worth of doing their life’s work. He watched gifted artists get sick. He watched careers reduce quick. And ultimately, he determined he wasn’t going to look at anymore.

He was a proud member of the Atlanta Blues Society, a corporation he helped steer towards a daring stance: it might solely maintain its month-to-month occasions in smokefree venues. It was a quiet however highly effective declaration that defending musicians wasn’t optionally available; it was a precondition for every little thing else.

His work in music promotion had given him a uncommon vantage level. He understood the economics and tradition of reside efficiency. He knew venue house owners, reserving brokers, artists, and followers. And he understood one thing many exterior the trade didn’t: that musicians have been staff, with all of the occupational well being rights that implied. Rights that have been routinely denied them the second they walked right into a membership.

He noticed that musicians’ livelihoods rely upon performing reside, evening after evening, within the very venues that have been making them sick. The extra profitable you have been as a working musician, the extra hours you logged respiration poisonous air. Success and hurt have been certain collectively, and that, McTush argued, was precisely backwards. “We as entertainers have change into victims of our personal success,” McTush stated. “Inhaling these poisonous vapors is the one hyperlink that all of us have in frequent and explains why it’s we’re all so sick.”

Mr. McTush’s advocacy was a years-long effort; he networked, talked to many individuals and helped construct smokefree coalitions throughout Georgia and past. He based and led two initiatives that grew to become central to that work: Smokefree Rights for All and Entertainers Talking Out. Each drew instantly on his trade relationships, mobilizing artists and leisure staff who had lengthy suffered in silence.

His signature message was blunt and memorable: “Some name it ambiance… we name it lethal.”

ANR Southern States Strategist, Onjewel Smith, was amongst those that linked with Mr. McTush throughout one of many early makes an attempt to launch a smokefree Atlanta marketing campaign, an effort that required a number of begins earlier than lastly succeeding. His persistence by way of these setbacks was attribute: he didn’t deal with a setback as a defeat, however as a part of the lengthy arc of change.

In Georgia, McTush was a useful a part of the smokefree coalitions that labored to move complete smokefree insurance policies in Atlanta and Augusta. These have been wins that had been years within the making and required navigating highly effective opposition from the hospitality trade. Atlanta, as a serious music metropolis, had lengthy been a niche in smokefree protections, and McTush threw himself into the work of closing that hole.

Smokefree Music Cities: Taking the Combat Nationwide

Mr. McTush’s attain prolonged properly past Georgia. By means of his partnership with ANR Basis’s Smokefree Music Cities venture, he carried the struggle into Louisiana and Tennessee, two states with wealthy, beloved music traditions and important gaps in employee protections for musicians.

In Louisiana, ANR Basis helped co-sponsor the Baton Rouge Blues Competition in 2018, which coincided with the implementation of the smokefree East Baton Rouge legislation, a victory that lastly protected staff in bars, golf equipment, and casinos. Mr. McTush’s work had helped lay the groundwork for coalitions just like the one which made that win potential, by demonstrating that musicians themselves have been prepared to talk up.

In Tennessee, the seeds of what would later develop into Smokefree Tennessee and the Nashville ordinance marketing campaign have been being planted throughout the identical interval. Cities like Nashville (now smokefree) and Memphis remained important gaps in smokefree protections for musicians, and Mr. McTush’s campaigns helped illuminate why that mattered, not just for employee well being however for the survival of the musical traditions these cities have been so proud to assert.

Defending the Musicians; Preserving the Blues

There was a deeper argument threaded by way of every little thing Mr. McTush did, one which went past customary public well being messaging. He cared fiercely about bringing younger folks into blues music, about passing on the custom and protecting it very important. And he understood that smokefree venues weren’t only a well being coverage: they have been an act of cultural preservation.

In order for you younger musicians to pursue the blues, it’s a must to give them venues the place they will breathe. In order for you the subsequent era of audiences to find this music, it’s a must to welcome them into areas that really feel protected and inclusive, not choked with secondhand smoke. The connection between smokefree advocacy and the blues was, for Mr. McTush, not incidental. It was the entire level.

One of many younger blues musicians Mr. McTush linked with was Jontavious Willis, a Grammy-nominee from rural Georgia. He says, “It’s a pressure to carry out in venues that enable smoking.” Different artists Mr. McTush dropped at the trigger: Little Dylan, Justin Golden, Jayy Hopp, Dee Lucas, Mike Bourne, Sean McDonald, Cam Kimbrough, and BB King’s daughter, Claudette King.

ANR Basis produced a number of Smokefree Music Cities movies that includes Mr. McTush and different blues artists making this case.