The US Congress declared 2003 the Year of the Blues. But the blues are in trouble. “When the blues tries to grab a mainstream crowd, it cleans up and cools down a genre that began as raw field songs and work hollers. Today’s popular version reeks of facsimile, with theatricality replacing raw passion, and mimicry usurping originality. Rare is today’s blues singer or guitarist who doesn’t call to mind his biggest influences with familiar riffs first played with fire a half-century ago. Rarer still is the songwriter who can craft an inventive blues tune. It is as if imagination has been banned.”