“There should be new young artists emerging like in the 60/70's, but maybe that's wishful thinking, especially with the rise of AI. These days, the music industry is ruling the music business as it ever was, and it's heavily in the minority. Music is becoming purely a consumer product, and the artists are interchangeable.”

Harry Loco: The Music of…

“It’s important to preserve and spread the blues publicly because there are a lot of people who don’t know what an inspiration and balm it can be in your life – because they haven’t been exposed. There are other people who don’t know they can write, sing and, play blues to keep themselves sane and to cope with a crazy world - because they haven’t heard it. So we have to get it out there.”…

“Blues music is existential. It will never die. It reveals what human beings experience from infancy to old age. The intricacies, joys, and struggles of life are embedded in this profound music.”

Pierre Lacocque: Don’t Look Back

Pierre…

“What I miss most from music nowadays are, nowadays music with lyrics and stories that have poor substance and lack of a good melody line that songs of the past had. Many new artists don’t understand hooks and how to sing the song to deliver it out of a box.”

Larin Michaels: It’s All About Music…

“I think it's (Blues) important to preserve culture in general. So we know where things come from. The origins. That's important to me. I think music is more important thatn ever in society. For allt eh things...entertainment, joy, resistance, voicing what some people are afraid to do or say. Maybe that's the same as it ever was but I do think it is part of the mission for some. “

Ross…

“Simply put, I have heard too many other styles of music as a result of being born where and when I was. To deny their influence on me would be limiting myself as well as being dishonest. That said, if I can't put the Blues into what I'm playing then I feel like I'm not properly contributing to the music. The sound and feel of the great Blues musicians are what I aspire to first. The other stuff just seeped in as a result of…

“Τα μπλουζ είναι απλά ξεχωριστά για μένα. Είναι κάτι που είναι αγαπητό στην ψυχή μου. Είναι πολύ βαθύ.”

Jimmy Burns: The Full Circle of The Blues

Ο Jimmy Burns γεννήθηκε στο Δέλτα του Μισισιπή και πέρασε σχεδόν όλη του τη ζωή στο…

“Blues is such an expressive style of music. It can bring tears to your eyes, Make you laugh, Make you think etc. You can feel what an artist is feeling through his or her voice. I think the Blues is an important genre of music and expression of what someone feels inside.”

Carmen Grillo: Walkin’ The Tightrope…

“The Blues is considered the foundational form for most modern American popular music, giving rise to genres such as jazz, soul, rhythm and blues (R&B), and rock and roll. Blues is an emotional style of music that relates to people for what they are going through. This is the way I try to approach playing.”

Jeff Stone-Skolnikas: Rolling Blues Stone…

“JB Hutto said, "Blues will be blues until the end of the world". He was right. Look at Jimmy Reed and the spectrum of emotions he takes you through with a simpler but greatly effective technique. He can do more with less. It is harder to do more with less, but when it reaches the soul and move a person, you know that the artist is hitting his mark.”…

“Blues music is an American institution and should never be forgotten or tossed aside.  It is important to preserve the genre because it is really the root of all music today.”

Ernie Pinata: Delta Wires Play Chess

The Delta Wires band was created out of a love of the…

“The blues also tells deeply human stories of love and loss, hope and struggle. The eleven songs recorded on the American Songbag include lyrics that are about hopes and dreams, lost love, mourning the dead, dreams of escape from jail, heaven and hell and the singers’ hopes and fears for the future.”…

“It’s so important that we preserve and spread blues music because it has such raw emotion behind it. Its origins came from a dark time in history that we can never repeat. Every word that those original blues musicians sang came from truth and heartache. As well, every form of modern music has some relation to the blues.”…

“I would like music to affect people in the sense that they can see and feel what happened to them. For example, that night when they listened to blues, did they feel that the music touched their soul? Or did they feel what the musicians were conveying while they played? Things like that.”

César Valdomir: Harp Attack Blues…

“Music of the past had soul...not after 1976...It's all production now...so it seems the AI may have a future with people that don't know anything about music...most of the music coming out seems to be more like Broadway musical theatre type of music...who knows? Maybe Robots will be the future singers and people will LOVE them!!”…

“The Arts in all forms, breeds empathy, compassion, sympathy, collaboration, communication and life skills like concentration, complex thought, scrutiny, questioning authority and self expression. Without these tools and skills we have no way to express our emotions which get bottled up and build a violent and depressed society.“

Doña Oxford: The Art of…

“Music today gives people a place to connect, escape, and heal. Blues is the root of it all — rock, soul, even hip-hop grew out of it. Preserving and spreading the blues matters ’cause it’s our history, our truth, and it still speaks to what folks are going through now.”

Jay Hooks: Tequila, Bullets &…

“My hope is that the Turkish blues community, which is already recognized and appreciated in the international blues world, will also receive the same appreciation here at home. Normally, people might phrase it the other way around—“we want the recognition abroad that we already enjoy at home”—but things don’t always work so logically in my country.”

Göksenin…

“Without sounding redundant hopefully. As I've said educating, and embracing our heritage, stop making Blues the last thought in the music field. And support the Blues, and live music clubs... Hopefully I made some sense in my responses to your questions. Thank you again for asking me to participate.”

Jimi “Primetime” Smith: My Blues…

“I think that the music is rooted in real southern culture. The bands that again “keep it reel“ are able to pull from their own experiences and translate that to a musical message that transcends and cuts through the noise of the world.”

Darrell Whitt: The Axe of Preacher Stone…