A Radio Show on the Blues

“SOMETHING OLD, NEW, BORROWED…BLUE”

The blues is America’s most fundamental roots music, still not only the bedrock of most of its popular music—rock, jazz, pop, soul, and more—but continuing to exert an even more powerful influence on world music.  “Something Old, New, Borrowed…Blue” is a demo for a radio series I was recently asked to propose.  (We’ve shortened the title from the original “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue.”)  Click below to listen to the 33-minute demo.  There’s been interest, but we’re still looking for a person or company to sponsor the show and help preserve American blues, a great music rich not only muscially, but historically, and in social consequence.  For example, in his book Shadow and Act, the great writer Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man) said the blues helped black people keep their courage when many people thought they were afraid.

Help us look for a sponsor.

Every show (1/2 to 1 hour) would be like a mini-tour of blues history, digging deep into its past (the old), scoping out the many ways it has evolved (the new), and sampling all the musics that have borrowed from it.

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