The basis of blues goes back to the 17th Century through to the 19th Century with the
importation of several hundred thousand West Africans to America to work as slaves until
Congress legistated its end in 1808. Slavery became concentrated in the plantations in the south and although the civil war that ended in 1865 freed the slaves, conditions for most were unchanged and the nature of the work and discrimination changed little. The music naturally had the influences of Africa