The Blues 蓝调百年之旅
I can't imagine my life or anyone else’s without music. It's like a light in the darkness that never goes out.
The blues 1 takes you back to the place where it first came to life. There is an old African saying that the roots of a tree cast no shadow. That's how deep the blues goes. When you really listen to the music, you understand this is the one thing they could never take away from black people.
You are listening to songs that were recorded for the Library of Congress in the 1930s. John Lomax who worked for the library called himself a ballad 2 hunter. He and his son Alan drove all across America and made literally 3 thousands of recordings 4. They were doing one of the most important things anyone can do. They were preserving the past before it disappeared forever.
It was John Lomax who first recorded Lead Belly 5 in 1933 in a Louisiana prison. After Lead Belly was released, he went to Philadelphia with the Lomaxes and he gave a series of concerts.
Northern audiences responded to Lead Belly and they loved the songs he performed. As Lead Belly became famous around the world, a different kind of musician was reworking the blues down in the Mississippi Delta 6 in a way that would eventually reach an even wider audience.
- She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
- He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。
- This poem has the distinctive flavour of a ballad.这首诗有民歌风味。
- This is a romantic ballad that is pure corn.这是一首极为伤感的浪漫小曲。
- He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
- Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。
- a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
- old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐