Well, if you really want to know the "official" definition of the blues it's, "a basic I-IV-V chord progression laid over a 12-bar framework." If your interest in the blues is more personal than technical, then the blues is a hell of a lot more than that!

This is how Bill Dahl explains it:

"Ever since the blues first developed from African-American field hollers, feeling has been the most essential ingredient. Rough-hewn rural heavyweights Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton, vaudeville-trained belters Bessie Smith and "Ma" Rainey, and Memphis bandleader W.C. Handy played incalcuble roles in defining the idiom. In Robert Johnson's mesmerizing hands, the blues jumped out of the Delta stark and menacing; barrelhouse pianists Roosevelt Sykes and Big Maceo gave it thunderous power, and ebullient alto saxist Louis Jordan injected a dose of happy jumping jive.

"Whether drawing from the mighty post-war roar of Chicago giants Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, the immaculate guitar excursions of B.B. King and his vast legion of acolytes, the daunting harmonica exploits of Little Walter and the two Sonny Boy Williamsons, or the soul-slanted, honey-voiced croons of Bobby "Blue" Bland and Little Milton, the blues has grown, adapted, remained abreast of the times as the decades sailed by. It remains a living, breathing entity as we cross the threshold into a new millennium, its future assured as long as folks search for relief from their suffering or require a rollicking soundtrack for their Saturday night soirees.

"The blues is as honest a musical form as it is uplifting. The blues is life-with all its ups and downs intact."

If ever there was a "blues anthem," then "St. James Infirmary" would be it. Recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1928 and Cab Callaway in 1930, and more recently by Janis Joplin, the music was taken from a traditional folksong known as "The Gamblers Blues"