Playing the music takes priority. However, I attempt to include anecdotal and historical information about the music. I also try to provide enough information on each item, especially on new releases, so the listener can order it. I don’t direct the listener to any particular vendor. Bob has defined WPKNs blues for decades. Learn More

Created by African-Americans in the United States in the late 1800s, the blues is a music genre, a style of music, a way of presenting musical ideas, different musical cultures, and an emotion. Its roots are in African American slave songs such as field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and country string ballads. Rural music that captured the suffering, anguish, and hopes of 300 years of slavery and tenant farming, the blues was typically played by roaming solo musicians on acoustic guitar, piano, or harmonica. Early on, the lyrics and instruments of the blues were improvised, giving rise to the one-stringed diddley bow, the percussive washboard, the jug, the spoons, and ...