Then as now, rumors of the blues' demise were greatly exaggerated, O'Neal says. And it's true that there aren't any guys exactly like them. But guys who are middle-aged now will become older, and the young guys who can't stand blues right now will start feeling it after a while. A lot of young kids pickin' up on blues. They won't be like my blues, but it'll be blues.
Blues are here to stay, no matter what.
But some of the precursors of the blues have not survived. Fife and drum music combines hymns and songs from the black folk tradition. With his fife rival Napoloan Strickland suffering from gout and living in a nursing home, Turner is the last of the practicing fife masters. And he is 89. He just might be dreaming about Ada, his wife of 50 years who died in 1994.