Very few people I know have any idea about early blues at all (not that I know much), it seems underappreciated all over the place. As much as I like that Emusic has a good bit on offer I feel it is a genre that really benefits from the album-long play and crackle that I like from vinyl.

Now to try an find some of these on old vinyl…

I guess what still surprises me though, is that jazz is from the same place as blues with only slight differences in influence. And again, over here we view it a bit as something that stopped evolving in a folk style and became more formalised, yet it seems to live on New Orleans in much the same way as it began. It’s kind of nice to know that these tunes are still being passed around a community of people who knew or at least feel a connection with the authors. Could you say that this is essentially what makes anything ‘folk’ ?

and if yr feeling adventurous (and columbo-esque) try and track down some of the mississippi records blues/folk releases. or more likely since they’re such limited vinyl runs, download them from somewhere.

Don’t worry Morgs, Part Two is going to be something of a mess, so the craziness will be restored.

Go Craig ! Great stuff.

I’ve just come back from Mississippi. I also now know where the delta ends – New Orleans bo’ !

It’s still such fertile muscial ground. From New Orleans to Memphis and across to Nashville I heard amazing music played to such a high standard in local bars and clubs. I came away with a similar conclusion to your evening’s chat – which is that to European ears, blues, jazz and country are the foundations of recorded music yet when you hear it in context over there, it’s still very much a folk-style tradition with people playing ’sessions’ in bars in a similar sense as folk is played in Scotland and Ireland. It took me a couple of days to appreciate these folk weren’t covers bands, they’re playing the music that comes from that place.

And yes … you can’t copyright what is essentially culture !