Fear and awe engulf me as I begin to write books about the blues. Nevertheless, we are talking about a phenomenon that has become planetary for some time now. Blues play, sing, and enjoy it in all corners of the world, and everywhere they argue about it, make judgments, assumptions, guesses. They argue both about the blues itself and its origins, and about the heroes of the blues, whose names are now known all over the world. Literature on blues is multiplying, with the discovery of new sources its volume and quality increase, encyclopedias have appeared, and half-forgotten names pop up in all these books.