Hoe Drenthe de blues kreeg: Harry Muskee en de migratie van bluesmuziek

Blues music finds its roots in the antebellum US South and underwent many transformations before it reached a broad audience in Western Europe during the 1950s. Despite its ever-changing nature, European teenagers of the post-World War II baby boom generation conceived it as authentic, pure, and not commercial and therefore an ideal vehicle to rebel against the conformity of white bourgeois society. The Rolling Stones are a famous example of this appropriation of Black music by white musicians, but also Dutch singer Harry ‘Cuby’ Muskee and his band the Blizzards used African American music traditions to break away from the dominant culture. Besides blues music, Muskee also found inspiration in the literature of beat authors. Once he moved to an old farmhouse in the Village of Grolloo, his escape from the mainstream was complete and Cuby himself became an authentic bluesman, a persona that was unmistakably connected to the rural province of Drenthe.