The Blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the Blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically ... they at once express both the agony of life and the possibility of conquering it through sheer toughness of spirit. They fall short of tragedy only in that they provide no solution, offer no scapegoat but the self.

... Ralph Ellison

Whether drawing from the mighty post-war roar of Chicago giants Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, the immaculate guitar excursions of B.B. King and his vast legion of acolytes, the daunting harmonica exploits of Little Walter and the two Sonny Boy Williamsons, or the soul-slanted, honey-voiced croons of Bobby "Blue" Bland and Little Milton, the blues has grown, adapted, remained abreast of the times as the decades sailed by. It remains a living, breathing entity as we cross the threshold into a new millennium, its future assured as long as folks search for relief from their suffering or require a rollicking soundtrack for their Saturday night soirees.

The blues is as honest a musical form as it is uplifting. The blues is life-with all its ups and downs intact.

Bill Dahl