Although I've played for fifty or so years - 47 of those years very intensively, I don't think of myself as a blues singer as such, or a blues artist.

Basically I find the blues guitar very attractive and the techniques something I feel a real affinity with and love for.

I am English, and I have never visited or wished to visit the part of the USA where blues comes from.

My songs are about the world I have inhabited, and I've gotten pretty fed up over the years of people telling me that my approach to folk music isn't 'real' folk music.

I never lived in a society where the the only mode of expression open to me was the tunes played by the local traditional musicians, and frankly I'm damn glad that was the case. I was free to choose music and techniques that excited me and entertained my audiences.

Nevertheless ones understanding of the circumstances in which Broonzy, or Skip, or Robert Johnson wrote and were trying to express can only aid our own attempts at self expression.

And so I thank you for exchanging with me your ideas about these songs.

Can I recommend a book to you. I have recently finished reading Elijah Walsh's Escape from the Delta I didn't find it a particularly easy read, unlike Wald's biography of Josh White , which I devoured at one sitting. Its a book with ideas, and frankly it left me with more questions than it answered.

One thing that did emerge from my reading was the fact that the blues was changing in a protean fashion. People were using it and understanding it in a much different way from its originators. Wald seemed to think this was a pity. I think it is inevitable. And I think its our right as artists to use the music as we need and wish.