In 2009 Greg Thomas told it his way - 
'Growing up in Brooklyn, New York in the tumultuous '60s and the far-out '70s, soul music, funk, R&B, soft and hard rock, the Motown and Philly Sounds, and even disco were most popular. Being young and ignorant, I shied away from the blues. 'That's old timey', said I, as an adolescent. 'That's from slavery times', I thought, as a teen. 'That's simple stuff compared to bebop jazz and European classical', I said, while in college. See, for me, a little knowledge was a dangerous thing. But the more I listened, the more I heard blues everywhere—all up in and around the jazz I fell in love with 30 years ago; in the soul, funk, R&B, and rock and roll on the radio; and even in the gospel I heard going to church in the South and the North. And the more I studied, the more profound the blues became to me. I learned that the blues was like vaccine, or a homeopathic remedy, giving you little doses of heartache lyrically, so you'd be able to withstand and understand the real heartbreak a little better, later. I found out that the blues and its siblings, the spirituals and gospel, were what black folk had instead of Freudian psychology. I came to see that blues, like Brer Rabbit tales, the stories of Uncle Remus, and the myths of John Henry and Aunt Hagar, were the folk wisdom of a strong, resilient, persevering people. I learned that whereas what the great writer on blues and jazz Albert Murray called the blues as such was about sadness, frustration and even depression, I also came to understand from him that blues music was about communal celebration and victory, elegance and style, and lettin' the good times roll between a man and a woman. That's how you stomp the blues! I noticed that all of the great innovators of jazz—from Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk to Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman—were masters of the blues. I also perceived that the most beloved ladies of song in blues and jazz—from Bessie and Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, Carmen McRae and Betty Carter—were steeped, marinated, and even perfumed sweetly in the blues. So when we're talking about the blues, we talkin' about something with deep roots and branches that found its extension and refinement in other forms and genres we hold dear. When we talkin' about the blues, we talkin' about the existential wisdom of a people, like those who have made Harlem what it is: the Blues tradition'.