In 1961 I was teaching in Chicago schools and B. B. King was making one of his very first albums, "King Of The Blues," for the extinct Crown label out of Culver City, CA.  I read the backside notes of virtually every blues & jazz album I own, because much of the true history of the music is found there rather than in books and magazines.  I realize that in such liner notes we've all suffered through countless definitions of the blues, only to find the one definition that we can accept is our own.  Occasionally however I run across one that stands out, as does the following by John Marlow on his "King Of The Blues" album. 

"The blues is an old man  . . . He's been around for a long, long time.  And after we've gone our way, that wise old gent will still be a sittin' and a rockin' . . . and observing.  For the blues is a universal language that knows no boundaries -- that transcends time.  The blues is basic, and inherently honest.  The blues is a story . . . of anguish, sadness, despair.  A story about hard-won victories, stated with resolved humor.  A story with subtle, satirical overtones.  And these tales spring from the secret heart of a few of the chosen disciples -- the Blues balladeers."

 Forty years later I consider myself privileged to have spent just one hour with this gracious gentleman, chatting backstage at the Coliseum after one of his special appearances here.  Oh, how I wish I could share this "wise old gent's" wisdom with those who spend their money promoting the sickness topping today's music charts by advocating  a small daughter help daddy kill her mother.   True . . . my own parents thought Elvis was obscene and that the youth of the world back then were going to hell with rock-n-roll  . . . which I thought was just a more honest look at the way kids expressed some release from the moral rigidity of their parent’s past.  I don't buy Emenem’s argument that  he's just mirroring  today's youth's real feelings about their parent's generation, despite their having inherited a world of potential nuclear & biological holocaust and being scared to death they have no real future. 

 Instead, what I see today is the same old story of "anguish, sadness, despair" that the Blues has told for many generations . . . and B. B. King and I share the vision of "hard-won victories, stated with resolved humor" that helps us work through each day's challenge . . . "with subtle, satirical overtones."  That challenge may be more urgent than ever before, but as long as we have the Blues to guide and sustain us, we have a chance to reach out to those so disaffected they see only violence ahead, and give them hope that they too some day can be "a sittin' and a rockin' . . . and observing."