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I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.

What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.

Without the blues, modern music would be nothing like it is now - not remotely.

I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.

As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.

The Blues scene now is international. In the '50s it was purely something that you would hear in black clubs, played by black musicians, especially in America. But from the '60s onwards it changed.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It's really, truly, rural white America's blues.

How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.

I was into playing American music, especially the blues.

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.