Coincidentally, I've been re-reading two books about The Band - Levon Helm's "This Wheel's On Fire", and "Across The Great Divide" by Barney Hoskins - and they both describe Levon's early years in Turkey Scratch (what a great name!), near Helena, in Arkansas. In spite of efforts by the KKK to intimidate people in the area, there was a lot of shared community life on the part of black and white farmers. Kids like Levon grew up listening to a wide variety of styles from local blues musicians, such as Sonny Boy Williamson II and Robert Lockwood Jr., to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio, and seeing travelling shows such as F.S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels.

Like the country string bands at the turn of the century and in the 1920s and 1930s, there was a lot of racial, musical crossover, though I doubt that any white person - even one who was poor and down-and-out - had to cope with the opprobrium that was heaped on those with a black skin. And it was that latter factor which gave the deep blues its identity.