"My favourite of his is 'Songsters and Saints'" That's my favorite of his too. In that one he deliberately emphasized old black-recorded _non-blues_: Lil McClintock, "Bob McKinney," that sort of thing, which tends to get underresearched.

I like how Oliver actually read Newman White, Gates Thomas, Howard Odum, Walter Prescott Webb, and the like instead of just waving at their names like a normal blues writer.