Putumayo Presents Blues Cafe

The musical genre that has come to be known as the blues has made quite a journey. The blues has traveled back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean and meandered up the Mississippi River from the rural South to the urban North. It has crossed racial and class boundaries as well, migrating from rough and tumble juke joints to sophisticated concert halls.

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The blues was born on the cotton and tobacco plantations of the South, descending from field hollers and created to express the sorrow and tribulations that plagued enslaved African Americans and their sharecropper descendants. Although it was once consid- ered "devil's music," the blues is now recognized widely as a major American art form. It has influenced popular music for generations by providing the musical underpinnings for jazz, rhythm & blues, rock & roll and even hip-hop.

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These days, you can find blues aficionados, musicians, venues, festivals, and radio programs almost anywhere in the world. Yet despite its international appeal, the roots and soul of the blues remain in the silty waters of the Mississippi Delta, the dusty roads of east Texas, and the verdant fields of the Piedmont plateau.