'It is one of the strengths, but but also one of the weaknesses of the blues, that' well, to put it bluntly, that it attracts performers who can neither play nor sing. And, in fact, one does get heartily sick of the blues, at times: the whimpering and mumbling about 'my baby done lef' me,' the kindergarten smut, the outmoded properties ('Please, Mr Fireman'), and above all the relentless lack of originality; for thirty or forty years we have had to endure these same icemen and riders and back doors and evening suns going down. --Philip Larkin, 1968

For the art—the blues, the spirituals, the jazz, the dance—was what we had in place of freedom. --Ralph Ellison, 1964

19 tracks