The Blues 蓝调百年之旅

（单词翻译）

I can't imagine my life or anyone else’s without music. It's like a light in the darkness that never goes out.

The blues¹ takes you back to the place where it first came to life. There is an old African saying that the roots of a tree cast no shadow. That's how deep the blues goes. When you really listen to the music, you understand this is the one thing they could never take away from black people.

You are listening to songs that were recorded for the Library of Congress in the 1930s. John Lomax who worked for the library called himself a ballad² hunter. He and his son Alan drove all across America and made literally³ thousands of recordings⁴. They were doing one of the most important things anyone can do. They were preserving the past before it disappeared forever.

It was John Lomax who first recorded Lead Belly⁵ in 1933 in a Louisiana prison. After Lead Belly was released, he went to Philadelphia with the Lomaxes and he gave a series of concerts.

Northern audiences responded to Lead Belly and they loved the songs he performed. As Lead Belly became famous around the world, a different kind of musician was reworking the blues down in the Mississippi Delta⁶ in a way that would eventually reach an even wider audience.