"I can’t imagine a society without music. Through music you can create emotion, tell a story and even communicate with another person who does not speak you own language. Through our music I want to take the listener on an enjoyable journey. If we can’t do that we have failed."

53 Across: New Mexico High Desert Blues

High Desert Blues. The cold…

"Blues music is about humanity. This music helps us get through the highs, the lows, the joy and the pain. I believe we need good blues music like we need good Healthcare."

Larry Lampkin: Funky Blues Man

Larry Lampkin is an American blues musician from Fort Worth, Texas. He is a passionate singer and unique guitarist who writes and performs songs…

"The blues has always in my experience been about bringing people together for a good time. The older generation remember this, and appreciate it for what it is and continue to keep enjoying the music and festivals, but if a little excitement is not brought back into this genre, then will loose the younger audience, and risk fading into the sunset."

Mitch Grainger: Down Under Blues &…

"I miss the honesty, I think. Technology has rather dominated the scene these days. It's easy to manipulate sound and illusion that doesn't exist."

Andrew Latimer: The Mirage of Music

Andrew Latimer is a founding member of the progressive rock band Camel and the only member who has been with them since their formation in 1971. Best known as a…

"I certainly agree with Coltrane: I define my life experience best through my painting, and I feel it's a gift I have an obligation to. As for the meaning of life, I think we all spend ours' considering that question, and I doubt anyone has come up with a wholly satisfying answer. But making art is the closest I've come to fulfilling what I think I'm here to do."

Marc Burckhardt:…

"I think it is too hard for a human to understand who they are. Maybe somebody outside of them can look at you and maybe they understand who you are. But I think it’s very hard for us to have that kind of perspective ourselves. So, he had it right because that would be the way that you can express it, for example in my case blues music does reveal who I am, even to me."

Angela Strehli: The…

"Think of all the music you listen to nowadays, you wouldn’t have it without the blues. Blues is the foundation of music. Those people needed an outlet to let out the extreme emotion they were feeling and the result was the Blues. It’s so important in history and touches the soul. It’ll fall thin but it’ll never truly die."

The International Crossroads Project:…

"What it always has been. I think some music today has the same power it always has. It allows people to let go, to hold on, to grieve and celebrate, to find God, to get laid, to get straight, to get high, to connect people that would otherwise have nothing in common."

Jhett Black: Grit, Energy & Heart

Foot stomping rhythms and raucous slide…

"In regard to my views of the world, I think they were already formed when I discovered Kerouac and the Beats. By the time I'd graduated from high school in 1976, I'd already been sufficiently radicalized by then to feel myself firmly aligned politically with the counterculture. Then, during college, the writings of Kerouac struck me right away – On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and The Subterraneans were my starting points – as being on my wavelength. I…

"I like music to be open and to have room for improvisation, a quality that blues and jazz has always had. Much of today’s music have a more produced and studio software based sound and arrangements where the instrumental parts are in the background or more or less absent. I hope, and work for, that young people will start playing in bands again like we did."

Espen Fjelle: The University…