Do I even need to say that it's blues time? Summer is always the ideal time to hear the best blues and jazz acts in the country and this year is no exception. I listen to and think about the blues a lot. Eventually, I hope to write a blues novel. I particularly muse about the blues this time of the year because it is when the three or four-day blues festival sponsored by the Cascade Blues Association takes place in Portland. This year it is called the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival and is July 3 through 6 at, you guessed it, Watefront Park.

The roster has included legendary acts as well as local and regional bluesmen and women, with a special focus on women. Among the big names appearing are Taj Mahal, Etta James, Steve Miller, Susan Tedeschi, Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo. The rest of the 100 or so performers are worthy souls, too.

Whenever I talk about the blues with a general audience, I make sure to define what I mean by blues and correct some misconceptions.

Blues are a kind of music that developed in America from the various musical expressions of African Americans. The blues are an extremely flexible type of music, and various musicians have created individual styles of performing them. The blues contributed greatly to the development of jazz. . . .

The basic blues design is a 12-bar form that is divided into three sections of four bars each. Most blues lyrics consist of several three-line stanzas. The second line of each stanza repeats the first, and the third line expresses a response to the first two. Many blues lyrics reflect loneliness or sorrow, but others declare a humorous or defiant reaction to life's troubles.

Blues may have developed after the American Civil War (1861-1865) from short solo calls and wails called field hollers. Field hollers were used as a form of communication among black plantation workers in the South. In the late 1800's, country, or "down-home," blues developed in the Mississippi Delta region. These songs were sung by a male singer, usually with the accompaniment of a guitar. Blind Lemon Jefferson and Mississippi John Hurt were well-known singers of country blues.

Music historians trace the history of the blues from the late 1800s in the South to the 1900s in other regions as African-Americans migrated to the Midwest, West and North. Modern blues echoes the themes of traditional blues — romantic relationships, the hard work of the laboring classes and the vicissitudes of fortune. Contemporary popularizers such as Keb Mo, Mem Shannon and Robert Cray have made a full circle with the music, bringing the influences of jazz and soul back to a genre that was the roots of both.

A common misconception about the blues is the music is always sad. The mood of a blues song can range from joyous to dolorous, from high as a Georgia pine to lower than a worm's belly. Blues lyrics reflect the full panoply of the human experience.