Clayton feels most alive when he's with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen -- he can't wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton's mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that's no way to live. Armed with his grandfather's brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping...

To escape an abusive master, a junkyard dog named Flats runs away and makes a name for himself from Mississippi to New York City playing blues on his guitar.

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was...

A live concert performance by B.B. King

B.B. King performs at Nick's Uptown Dallas

The opening line of this call and response style verse asks the question that forms the thread throughout – Blues, what you mean to me? In a magnificent collaboration of words, art, and song, a timeline of the blues is presented in a soulful reading and dramatic musical accompaniment that offers a compelling evocation of the blues experience. A Live Oak Media audio production.