The Death of the Blues?
Wednesday 25 August 2004 21:15-22:00 (Radio 3)
Last year was declared the Year of the Blues in the United States. Hip Hop writer Harry Allen, formerly known as the Media Assassin in the band Public Enemy, claims no specialist knowledge of the blues except in terms of nerves and emotions. Travelling to Mississippi for the first time, he meets the last of a dying breed, musicians like RL Burnside and Willie King who began life on the plantations. What he discovers is a musical tradition that has been defined and then confined by white mainstream culture.
