The blues rose out of the churches and the fields of African slaves in America. Both the work songs and the church music had roots that disappeared into tribal rhythms from their former homes. With each new generation born in the new world, Africa moved further into the past and the slave's music started to adapt features of the other cultures they came into contact with. For the majority this meant the Anglo-Saxon heritage of their masters, for a few it was French or Spanish influence, and even in some places, Native American.

So, depending on the region of the country the music developed differently. Who knows what the exact set of circumstances were that brought Robert Johnson to the crossroads that day to sell his soul for the gift of music, but we do know it was down in Mississippi where the delta blues rose out of the mud flats like steam from puddles after a thunder storm on a hot summer's day. Instead of singing about the power of God, it sang about the cares of men. The bars became the blues singer's pulpit where they could sing about life on earth and not the here-after.

It was when the descendants of the Scotch/Irish white settlers started to combine the music they had brought over from England, with the blues their former slaves were singing, that we got rock and roll. Since the time that Elvis started recording songs he had heard people like Big Moma Thornton perform, the blues and rock music have been continually cross-pollinating, and now they share many of the same characteristics.

When you listen to the music of a modern electric blues player you mainly hear rock and roll's influence in the guitar playing, especially the leads employed by some of the more exuberant players. Listening to Iron Man, Michael Burkes' most recent release on Alligator Records, gives you a perfect example of someone who has taken the power of rock and roll's electric guitar solos and wrapped it in the soul of the blues.

With so much of rock and roll being blues based to begin with, it's kind of hard sometimes to differentiate between a guy playing electric blues and just another hard rocker. It's when you listen to someone like Michael Burks that you can really hear the difference between the two. For, while he can tear up the guitar with the best of them, it doesn't prevent him from maintaining his blues sensibilities. You can hear it in the way he sings, in the material he writes or chooses to sing, and the over all feel of his music, that deep in his heart he will always be a blues musician.