Blues Historian Now Smart Phone Friendly

I do look at the stats, and few people with smart phones stop by here at blues historian.  I never really thought about it, because I was too cheap to get a smart phone!  OK, so I finally got a good deal on one, and I checked out the blog and found out why.  the blog IS TOO DAMN BIG!  So I went in and did some adjustments, and now it is user friendly for people with smart phones, and any other small screen device that you use to gather information from the net.  Please pass the word along and check it out.  It works great I just checked it out on my phone:-)


Thanks for keeping the blues alive

Tom
Blues Historian

Blues Historian Update

Things are slowing down here at Blues Historian. Back when I started this blog for my Blues History class at BVU, I was posting three stories, and three videos a day. Over the last few years I have added and subtracted features, but I have kept it going. However, things are changing. The blues class that I have taught for the last five years has ended. From what I understand it was a numbers thing, which in is probably a good thing. Teaching every night for three weeks in a row gets old quick, but having the opportunity to teach not only the history of the blues, but the history of African Americans was priceless. Many of my students had no clue about the history of African Americans. Most believed that after slavery everything was great. The blues let me teach that segregation, tenant farming, racism, and Jim Crow made life harsh for African Americans until fairly recent times.

Keeping this blog alive is becoming more and more a job, and my time to really put in an effort grows shorter as my day job seems to take up what free time I have left. I don't think that the weekly visitor will see much change, but those who stop by daily will probably see several days between posts at times.

I wish I had more time to work on this blog, because in many ways the blues is hitting hard times as well. festivals and blues societies that were the life blood of the blues for many years are experiencing the bad economy just like the rest of us. We are all pinching pennies and not spending what we use to, to support the blues, and that is certainly having an effect on musicians, promoters, and blues societies. Plus file sharing doesn't help. I know that those of you who get your music free think that given the current economy that at least you are listening to the blues, but you are killing us. Musicians who don't get paid for their hard work, stop making music.

So, please support your local bluesman, and blueswoman, keep the blues alive by PAYING for your music, and certainly check out the live shows.

Thanks

Tom Gary
Blues Historian

Change In Look

Well, I am not sure if this is going to be a long term change, or if I might go back to the old look. The old blog has been cutting off the right side of a lot of posts. This new look shows all of the posts, and makes the blog look a little better. It will probably take awhile for me to get use to the new look, but hopefully it will make the blog much easier to read.

LInks Update, and Stormy Weather

First I updated the links section. Blogger has a new blog link so that blogs that are linked to my blog are automatically updated and a small snippet of the post is shown for you to read. So if your favorite link is missing check out the blogs I read section and it is probably there. The only link I deleted completely was the draft Al Gore website. I don't see a reason to draft Al, even though I like him, I think that Barack Obama is a pretty good choice:-)

Second, the weather has been very strange. The weather service all day said that severe weather was a guarantee. So I stayed around close to home. The bad stuff stayed way west and is currently south east of me. However, the wind up here is really bad. It is so bad up here that there are high wind warnings out!! I have lost a tree branch, but still have electricity. It should be interesting to see what the damage is like in the morning around town.

Hopefully, I will resume normal posting tomorrow.

BTW, if you are in Chicago be sure to stop by the Chicago Blues Fest it is going on NOW!!!!!!