"It seems rather obvious that given the early obscurity of the blues among writers, and the inability of anyone in the 1920s to carry out extensive ethnomusicological studies across the South - or anywhere" Well, I think what people like Newman White, Howard Odum, Thomas Talley, E.C. Perrow, Abbe Niles, Dorothy Scarborough, Charles Peabody, and Gates Thomas did before 1930 is generally overlooked and underrated these days by blues fans.