I recently found myself in a nailbitingly exciting game of bar trivia.   An interesting question came up.  The question was "which  beetle poses the greatest threat to the cotton crop in the south."  Immediately I thought of Led Belly's rendition of the blues song Boll Weevil.  I am from Minnesota.  I have never seen a cotton field and I definitely had no idea what a boll weevil was.  However, I knew from the context of the song that it was some sort of pest that terrorized southern cotton farmers.  Following my gut, we put down the answer, "boll weevil," and sure enough, SCORE!  We got the trivia question right.   

All this got me thinking.  Though I am no expert in blues music or blues history, this genre has a particularly strong draw for me.   Having gained that tiny piece of historical trivia through my basic blues music education reminded me of why I fell in love with the genre in the first place.  Woven into the words and notes of blues music is deep sense of history and context.  The story telling sucks me in and leaves me wanting more.  

And with that reminder, Blues Every Damn Day, was born.  This will be my way to share the continuation of my blues education.   Every day I will highlight a new blues song.  I will include music from some of my amazing blues playing friends in Minneapolis and (maybe) I will eventually share my own artistic endeavors.  When possible I will give some historical context and about the artist or song.  

So today I will give tribute to that famous blues song that taught me a little bit about the boll weevil.  A boll weevil is a little cotton-feeding beetle that migrated from mexico through texas and the rest of the south in the 1920's and 1930s.  It devastated cotton crops therefore wreaking major havoc on farmers and the entire industry.  And where there is turmoil, there are blues singers.  Countless songs about the boll weevil came about chronicling the story of that little destructive bug.  

Without further delay, let's kick things off with a little story from Led Belly about a boll weevil just looking for a home.  

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJjdHpFwS9I