Hi MAB

Thanks for this buddy!

"Interesting theory.I doubt you will find many that will subscribe to it.You will find that most types of music had simultaneous beginnings. But it really falls to those that bring it to the mainstream that are credited with actually inventing anything."

I agree this Marc, however my intention is to uncover the NA communities contribution. There's no point in trying to contend that Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, MS John Hurt (and all the rest) weren't some of the greatest blues musicians that every lived and that the 'Race Records' weren't the beginning of the blues as we known it today! That said it is the threads of the NA's involvement which have been 'positively obscured' in most historical accounts of the blues, in my view.


"And you will probably get quite a deal of argument from the African American community that can show origins in Africa hundreds of years before it showed up here. I don't really think there were too many Choctaw indian tribes in Africa."

Two men that I'm sure you are familiar with John And Alan Lomax, carried out a decade of detailed research in the Southern States and later in West Africa, all commissioned by the Library of Congress in Washington. While they recorded a vast and invaluable collection of early blues and traditional African tribal music, field hollers and prison blues .... their specific objective was to discover what they referred to as the 'West African Link' in blues music. That was (and is) evidence within West Africa Music which point to blues structure, rhythm or tuning. According to Alan and his father John Lomax, after conducting the most detailed and extensive research into the blues they found no hard evidence .... for their West Africa Link.

"So claiming one person or another "invented" anything is kind of an excercise in futility. There is always going to be someone else that will claim origins hundreds of years before anyone you can name were even born."

Again you are absolutely correct here Marc! The great historian JR Hartley once remarked that 'History is a foreign land and that people did things differently there!'. The fact that others will inevitably disagree is no reason not to look and theorize!

I should tell you that my Father's family was from Philidelphia Mississippi, one of the largest communities of Choctaw indians, and that a distant cousin of mine was Jimmie Rodgers, who is credited with being the "Father of country music." The only reason I mention that is that I am familiar with claims of Indian's creating the blues. Interesting theory.


Well Marc in that case I'm very lucky and honoured to make your acquaintance! I am also aware that I am by no means the first to posit the connection between the NAs and the origin of the blues!


The fact is that the Blues, like all music has many fathers and often completely independent of each other. From the Blues of St. Louis that came from Riverboats, the blues of New Orleans with it's jazz traditions, the blues of Memphis, Mississippi,etc. you are probably going to find that there is no true way to prove anything and you will find many conflicting points of view. You will also probably find many of them will make the same claims as you are making for their own versions.
When you get into trying to re-write history or challenge people's opinions of their roots, you will probably find a lot of push back.

I agree the thesis is controversial! When you say 'attempting to re-write history!' my only defence is that the writing of history has been an interpretative pursuit as back back as the bible. In many ways the 21st Century will be known as the age of Historical Revisionism as earlier interpretations of historical events are proved to be coloured by the culture and establishment of their day.

"But I do wish you luck in your journey. Always interesting to get other perspectives."

Thank you so much Marc for your detailed response - it is greatly appreciated. Of course I might be misguided or simply wrong ... but that's no reason not to look into the history of the most important music genre of the 20th Century!

Many thanks

ColmT