About Brother Blue

Brother Blue dressed in blue, from his socks to his beret to the butterflies painted on his palms. Brother Blue spent a lot of his time in prisons and on street corners. Many around the world listened to Brother Blue while he was with us.  He said:

"I think I was anointed to be a storyteller-I mean touched by the fire," says Brother Blue. "I can tell stories in my sleep and blow the world away!"

A blue banner across his chest read "Brother Blue, Storyteller." Brother Blue was also known as Hugh Morgan Hill, Ph.D. For over 40 years he told his stories in public. Brother Blue was the official storyteller of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He's earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard with honors and a master's degree in playwriting from Yale Drama Schoool. Brother Blue was an ordained minister who transmited his stories and love of stories to a far-reaching audience.

"I bring Homer to the streets. I bring Sophocles," Brother Blue says. "To tell stories, you should know Chaucer. You should know Shakespeare. You should know Keats.

You have to be constantly reading. You read, you think, you create. You have to know the new moves: You must be able to rap and be able to sing the blues!"

Brother Blue transformed the classics into a modern setting. He placed his version of Romeo and Juliet in the inner city. He updated the plight of King Lear-Shakespeare's aged, battered royal hero, to talk about the homeless people of today.

“We ain’t nothin’ but music wrapped in a body made of snow.”

On Tuesday night, storytelling night, November 3, 2009, our beloved mentor, teacher and self-proclaimed holy fool Brother Blue, left this world to go home to be with the ancestors.   We who remain are left so very blessed by his presence in this world and in our lives.  He taught us how to live stories, not just tell them.  He told us that storytelling is God talking to God and modeled that every single day. And when Blue listened, he listened powerfully with all his heart, all his soul and all his strength.  Anyone who has ever been near him knows this. He didn’t just change the world, he changed worlds – every single person he met.  In the street, at festivals, in prisons, at storyteller gatherings, in the offices of academics and wherever there was music.

If Blue were here to talk about himself now he would say, “Don’t remember Blue.  Remember Ruth.  Ruth is truth.”