W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton clash as Joe Louis floors Nazi champ. In a fight with enormous political implications, black heavyweight champ, Joe Louis, successfully defends his world title against Hitler's Max Schmeling. WW2 started in Europe a year later. Joe was...

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’S FORGOTTEN FATHER.

WHEN PIRATES SHIPPED IN AMERICA’S FIRST SLAVES.

FIRST EVER MENTIONS OF THE BLUES

TOM MORELLO. TOMORROW’S JIMI HENDRIX?

Realising I’d never be a top guitarist.

The day I discovered the blues.

When blues guitarists were counted on one hand.

This site is for those wanting to discover how blues evolved in its earliest years, before being named and categorised for the first time in 1912. You’ll also find out how rocking blues gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll.

The site’s other role is to support my three books on blues’ evolution, each of which explores and unravels the mysterious tangled histories of the different strains of music leading to blues and rock.

First came my two eBooks – ‘How Blues Evolved, Volumes One and Two’. Downloaded for a song on Amazon, you’ll find these are rare for eBooks, each being jammed-packed with early etchings and illustrations supporting the text.

Combining and expanding the two eBooks resulted in a big 11.5 x 8 inch, 390-page pictorial paperback. Called ‘AMERICA’S GIFT: The Untold Story of How Blues Evolved’, this book’s available by clicking on the blue and yellow AMERICA’S Gift cover, bottom left. I’m confident some of its revelations are found nowhere else.

Get a taste of what’s in my books from the posts you’ll find above, or check the archives, right, for over 236 historic blues and vintage rock articles. These are indexed under the Explore Archives button, top.

And if you want to know why I write about the blues, instead of playing the blues, the video below might help explain.

Of all America’s creative gifts to the world, does anything touch us more than the music we have called blues since it was first named in 1912?

Rock’n’roll, beat, old school R&B, blues rock, hard rock, plain old rock, soul, funk, jazz, metal and pop are just some of the captivating musical genres to have rocked and rolled out of the blues, parent of all modern American music.

For lovers of popular music, how can blues not be America’s greatest gift to the world?

Preview here: America’s Gift

Help dead blues artists get stoned.

When blues stars were pop stars.

1938’s HEAVYWEIGHT BLUES CLASH.