Well thanks Guest, or should that be guests, and to you Desert Dancer. To be quite frank, I am not doubting that the blues is African in origin. However, whenever I hear African music, it doesn't strike a resonant chord with me - it just sounds like African music. I love American black music until house music fucked it up and I would love for someone to show me its African roots and how the music developed from there.

I would like answer Guest's criticism about PBS not allowing a black person to talk about his own music and instead leaving it to a white person. It is,afterall, a valid point. However, the fact is that the vast majority of blues lovers are white and this is odd when you think that the blues is the blackest of music. I remember when I went to see Muddy Waters at the New Victoria Theatre in London in the late 70s. It was packed out with people, but with white people. There was not a sngle black person in the audience. I think a lot of black people became alienated from the music in the 60s when, in truth, it became associated with white people, and these blues artists began to look, well, a little Tom. Grossly unfair, I know, but I believe that is how they saw them. It also seems probable that rather than PBS employing Scorsese to front this programme, this is Scorsese's own project - and all in all, despite my criticisms, I think he deserves credit for it.