Folks need something for their spirit to help them make it through. Well, this music is a healer, and that's why we play the blues, why we play the blues. Hey, now, we played a lot of places from the East out to the West, we take it to the stage and put this music to the test. Why we play the blues, y'all, why we play the blues. Thousands of music fans will come to hear the wailing guitars, harmonicas and saxophones the songs of joy and the songs of pain.
Most people know the blues when they hear it.
They may not be able to define it, but they know the feeling the music inspires. For Angela Strehli, who helps close the show Saturday night, what's essential in the blues is honesty. It's honest music, honest thoughts about life. For me the blues is the foundation of African-American culture. I see it in theater, in novels and poetry, in the stories my father told me about growing up in the South.