The musical appeal of the Blues, as they began to be heard in the early twentieth century, was so infectious that musicians with open minds and ears were drawn to it as soon as they heard it. And that appeal crossed the racial and ethnic divides that characterized American society. So it was, that even before African American guitarists were recorded playing fingerstyle blues guitar, their white n…

As the Country Blues began to be recorded in the mid-1920s it soon became apparent that the music was being played and appreciated not only by African-American musicians and audiences but by white musicians and audiences as well. Many of these white musicians played with and learned from black musicians for even in the Jim Crow Era there was always a good deal of musical interaction and exchan…