Just want to put in a strong recommendation for an old book that I recently reread: Really the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow with Bernard Wolfe. If you haven't read it, or just haven't read it lately, pick it up! Despite the title, it is not about the kind of blues we focus on. It's the biography of a white Chicago musician, born in 1900, who plays New Orleans-style jazz (which includes many blues pieces). He hangs out with (and sometimes plays with and even mentors) many of the great musicians, plays in speakeasies for some of the big gangsters, and immerses himself in underground black culture. Along the way he becomes the Johnny Appleseed of cannabis, almost single-handedly turning on the US to this herb, which was legal at the time. And it's all told in the hipster slang of the era. The book was a huge influence on the Beat writers, and it's sort of the beginning of American counterculture, at least in literature. It's also life-affirming, the story of someone who followed his passions no matter what. Plant you now, dig you later. Ch.