Marketing the music, marketing the program

The 2011 Folklife Festival program Rhythm and Blues: Tell It Like It Is! told the stories and featured the songs of how rhythm and blues music became such a powerful influence on American popular culture. In the words of program curator Mark Puryear, it revealed “some of the social and cultural notes that have been played out through the decades.” In addition to presenting performers who made countless contributions to rhythm and blues music, the program also brought forth radio personalities, promoters, and Bob Cicero of Globe Poster Printing.

Founded in 1929 in Baltimore, Globe advertised just about everything, including circuses, vaudeville shows, auto races, boxing, and wrestling matches. By the 1950s, rhythm and blues performances became the company’s mainstay. Using letterpress wood type, silk screens, block printing, and Day-Glo inks, Globe made posters that could be seen from a car going forty miles an hour. Joe Cicero, Bob’s father, began working with the company in 1934 and bought it in 1974. The Cicero family ran the business until 2010.

With a pedigree that hit all the right notes coupled with a desire to attach the right message to the Rhythm and Blues program, we turned to Globe Poster Printing to do the rest. They came up with a poster that was “loud and blaring” and succeeded in promoting the program while staying true to the genre’s aesthetics. They printed over 200 posters, including 175 that were signed and numbered by Bob Cicero. This poster adorned the entryway to the program on the National Mall, embellished the Soulsville Stage backdrop, and was given out to each participant in the program.

The Festival poster was one of the last produced by Globe Poster Printing before they closed their doors for good. Bob Cicero now teaches letterpress at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where sixteen truckloads of wood type, posters, printing cuts, and related materials from Globe Poster Printing reside and are used as teaching tools.