JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight:
singing the coronavirus blues.

Jeffrey Brown revisits
a musician who has
met many challenges
with song in the past,

and now confronts one
that is quite personal.

The story is part of our
ongoing American Creators
series on rural arts and Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Outside
the Citadel nursing
home in Salisbury, North
Carolina, an uplifting

one-woman performance.

The singer, 63-year-old
blues musician Pat
"Mother Blues" Cohen.

PAT "MOTHER BLUES" COHEN,
Musician: There's been
like a huge outbreak
of the coronavirus.

And everybody's in their
rooms. And everybody is afraid.

And I want to do
something that's going
to brighten up somebody's
day. And in brightening

somebody else's day, it
brightens my day also.

WOMAN: The citadel in
Salisbury now considered
the site of an outbreak.

JEFFREY BROWN: The nursing home
is the scene of one of North
Carolina's worst outbreaks

of COVID-19.

Health officials say the
160-bed facility has had more
than 150 confirmed cases among

residents and staff, one of
the residents, Pat Cohen's
59-year-old brother, George. He

first went into the
home two years ago after
suffering a stroke.

He's not been diagnosed with
COVID, but is mostly confined
to his bed, and watches his

sister perform
through the window.

PAT "MOTHER BLUES" COHEN: My
brother used to help me with
my equipment that he would

carry it to my car for
me. And he was -- I could
always depend on him.

So I'm doing the
same thing for him.

JEFFREY BROWN: We first met Pat
Cohen in 2014 at a gathering
in Durham of the Music Maker

Relief Foundation, an
organization that's
supported more than 400
blues musicians around

the South, mostly
African-American, often
rural, people like
Ironing Board Sam, who

briefly reached the spotlight,
but never made it big, and
eked out a living playing small

clubs and busking
on the streets.

Music Maker helps these
musicians meet basic needs and,
for some, has gotten them back

to performing paying gigs.

Now, founder Tim Duffy
says, the shows have
stopped. The fear is real.

TIM DUFFY, Founder,
Music Maker Relief
Foundation: They're scared.

When you live -- like, an
average check is like $600 to
$800 a month, sometimes as low

as $400 a month. All the artists
that we are working with, a
lot of them are between 75

and 85 and have diabetes.
They're highly intelligent.

And so, like, they will tell
me, if I make a mistake, I
might die, if I touch the wrong

thing. So, they're being very,
very careful. But that's a
lot of pressure to live under.

JEFFREY BROWN: A lot of
artists and arts organizations
are now looking to new
models, like streaming...

TIM DUFFY: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... as a
way to stay connected, also
to possibly raise funds.

Is that sort of thing possible
for you and these artists?

TIM DUFFY: It's possible, but
there's a great digital divide.
They're elderly. They don't

know how to use the devices.
A lot of places are in rural
communities that don't have the

best Internet, so
we can't do that.

JEFFREY BROWN: Pat Cohen was
once a regular on the New
Orleans scene. She lost her home

during Hurricane
Katrina, along with her
professional connections.

Music Maker helped her relocate
to North Carolina and pick up
her career. She was scheduled

to perform at Jazz Fest earlier
this month, in fact, and in
Portugal later on. But now

all the gigs are gone,
the money not coming in.

PAT "MOTHER BLUES" COHEN: If
all you do is sing or play
an instrument, or whatever it

is, you don't know what you're
going to do, because, after
this is over, if it's ever

over -- you wonder if it's
ever going to be over.

You don't know how things are
going to change. And you know
it's going to change. Will there

ever be live concerts again?

JEFFREY BROWN: She used to
be paid to perform inside the
nursing home. Now there's just

singing outside to lift
up her brother and others.

Music Maker's Tim Duffy says
it's another example of why
the musicians he's worked with

for 25 years deserve
our respect and help.

TIM DUFFY: She just
keeps on going.

And now she literally has very
little money. And she gets
up the gumption to go out and

sing for them and do something
to help others with what she
has. She has joy in her heart.

She has music. And I think, in
times of crisis, we look for
our folk musicians to guide us.

That's their role.
They're bards.

JEFFREY BROWN: Pat "Mother
Blues" Cohen puts it this way:

PAT "MOTHER BLUES"
COHEN: Everybody has a
currency, and everybody's
currency is different.

My currency is my voice.

You don't have to do what
I do, but do something
nice for somebody else.
And that makes you

feel good. And that's
contagious by itself.

JEFFREY BROWN: Blues, both
sad and joyful, now comforting
others in a time of pandemic.

For the "PBS NewsHour,"
I'm Jeffrey Brown.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And singing to
her brother, that is special.