Richie wrote:

"A "blues" song could be anything really. The white blues from the mountains refers to songs by artists like Dock Boggs and has nothing to do with 12 bar blues"

What they call "white mountain blues" is/was basically white countryish musicians that were influenced from blues and other black venacular music colorings more than the actual structure "12 bar blues". Frank Hutchison, Doc Boggs,Riley Puckett, Jimmie Rodgers etc..



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Folknacious wrote:

"In recent years it has become quite fashionable to refer to musics from other cultures that carry the same feeling/ content/ origins as blues as "the xxxx blues". So what Ali Farke Toure plays is called "desert blues", and rembetika from Greece is called "the Greek blues" and portuguese fado is "Portuguese blues". Is this just journalists etc being lazy, everything getting cuturally American-centric, or does it make real sense?"


I think there is an obvious link between the music of the Sahel/Griot Africa, which is what is often refered to as "Desert BLues". I remember reading an interview where Ali Fourka Toure said that when he first heard John Lee Hooker, he thought it was music from Mali and wondered where Hooker got this music from.