The notion that the blues could be copyrighted by one ethnic group in one Arkansas county is a charming conceit, but scarcely accords with mother wit. Such thinking may be a natural outgrowth of the hoary old assumption among a different kind of racist, that only black folks have troubles. If that were so, the audience for the blues would be an exclusive club. What a question. Anybody's who's ever had 'em and had 'em bad knows that ain't good.
Nobody owns the blues.
Sophocles knew it when he wrote the lines for those Greek choruses, who were singin' the blues, even if they called it catharsis. They speak to the human condition. They get us down so far, they raise us up. The blues are life, or at least an unavoidable part of it, and they get us through it. The blues aren't about rising above things, but going through them.