“Another nice article on the #blues from @paulgmerry.” PhillyCheeze’s Rock and Blues Reviews @phillycheeze Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2 June 2015. “Enjoy your blog very much Paul! Thanks for supporting the blues! ;-)” Joanne LeBlanc  (@jleblanc59) SF Bay area, February 22, 2014.  Formany, Chicago surely rates as America’s top blues city. That’s perfectly understandable, considering the…

Eric Bibb and Michael Jerome Brown play Darvel: 3 May 2014 There’s a little town in Scotland that’s home to one of my oldest friends. He’s an Englishman, like me, or, should I say, he was an Englishman, once. After marrying a Scot, he moved to Darvel, East Ayrshire, in the heart of the land of the thistle. He’s…

“STUNNING understanding and appreciation of my work.”   paul corry (@thebluesfreak), England, February 14, 2014. As one gets older, it’s been proven that your musical tastes mellow. And, with your consumption of music sated over the years, it’s likely any pursuit of new tunes also tails off. Mine certainly has, with the last blues album I actually bought being…

“Thank you so much for … keeping the flame of the Blues alive with your Blog; it’s not often that true researchers of Blues dare to say the stuff you have written, for example, the ‘Grail’ of Congo Square article you wrote and also of New York being essential in the public’s early exposure to Blues. Please keep doing…

UPDATED 19 JULY 2017 Once described as a Mediterranean port transplanted into the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans has always been, and felt, different to the rest of America’s South. As far back as the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when Louisiana was under French and Spanish rule, slaves were allowed to congregate freely in Congo Square, in New Orleans’…