Category Archives: – Key Songs and Albums

– How Stagger Lee helped to survive the Jim Crow system

Each culture has its myths and folk heroes. They are an expression of the social and economic systems and their evolution in which they are given shape. In Western Europe for instance we are familiar with the good bandit Robin Hood who stole from the poor to give it to the rich. A similar figure […]

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– The Beetle Blues

As Edward Comara points out in his Encyclopedia of the Blues (p. 995), it is quite normal that the blues singer in his capacity as African American bard deals with disasters of all different kind : incidental, long-term, accidental and natural. An analysis of the frequency of the disaster theme in blues songs and its […]

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– Kokola blues : from Baltimore to Sweet Home Chicago

There is perhaps no other song which is more iconic to the blues than “Sweet Home Chicago“. Is there any blues artist who doesn’t (didn’t) have it on his/her repertoire? At one time, more than 75 different versions of the song have been counted! Just try for fun looking up the song in any internet […]

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