We're learning that there were so many styles early on, round about fin de siecle... all with African music & culture in common; regional styles, some of them "country" styles, some urban "Classic" styles; ragtime styles; and some we might call marching band styles like fife & drum and "second line".

A major Folklore Theory is called Spontaneous Generation. The theory claims that remarkably similar motifs might appear in places that had no communication with each other. The earliest generations of African Americans held close as they could to their African folkways. No matter whether they were in an urban or rural milieu, hill country or flatlands, House Servant or field worker, they all had African lore in common. The expressions of their similar (or identical) lore were influenced by their milieu, so we discover there are these various distinctive forms of African American "Blues" over time.

Before we discovered the variety of African-based Blues forms we know of today; before we could put together any sense of a timeline; before we realized many of these forms were contemporaneous; before we realized that some forms grew right out of an earlier form, that some forms may have been influenced by other forms, and that some forms developed "spontaneously" meaning with minimal external influence by other forms; before we could conceptualize Blues pre-history; it was easy to prematurely conclude that one dramatic Blues form found mainly in The Delta in the 1920s and 30s might be The Blues Ground Zero.

That error of enthusiasm is just part of human nature. We note it and move on more carefully.

Cheers,