To keep all the blues lovers occupied after they’ve finished our chock full o’ blues November issue, here are some of the top blues Web sites and resources on the Internet. Interestingly, unlike a few of the jazz sites mentioned in last month’s column, the larger blues sites are almost exclusively non-commercial, a testament to the enduring legacy of the blues as a roots music and to the commitment and extent of personal involvement of blues fans worldwide to the music they enjoy and relate to.

For discussion of the blues with other fans on Usenet news, check out rec.music.bluenote.blues, alt.music.blues or alt.music.blues.delta. As with most newsgroups in the alt hierarchy alt.music.blues and alt.music.blues.delta are more apt to receive spam (unsolicited, often off-topic posts that more often than nor advertise a product, service or site) than is rec.music.bluenote.blues. For an even better signal-to-noise ratio, get serious and subscribe to the blues-I email list. One of the easier ways to subscribe to the blues-I listserv (as well as thousands more devoted to a huge range of topics), is to visit the Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists site (http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml). This site allows users to browse mailing lists by topic or name, or to search for specific lists. Once the specific list is found, the PAML site provides the contact information for subscribing to the list. One word of caution on subscribing to blues-I or other lists: the amount of mail can be overwhelming. Many listservs allow users to choose a digest format, where many pieces of mail are combined, automatically by order received, by the listserv software then sent as one larger piece of mail a few times a day. Still, be sure to save the information on how to unsubscribe from the list if the amount of mail is more than you can handle or you lose interest in the subject.

For blues Web sites, few even come close to blues fan Curtis Hewston’s Blue Highway site (www.thebluehighway.com). Still favoring content over flashy design, the Blue Highway is the best for both newer blues fans to find biographies on musicians and histories of the blues, and for veteran fans looking for specific information and links. 20 short bios of blues musicians ranging from Robert Johnson to John Lee Hooker are included at the site along with a number of essays and travelogues of blues trips written by Hewston and submitted by blues fans as far flung as Norway.

The Delta Map traces routes 61 and 49 up from the Gulf of Mexico and lists all pertinent cities and towns from New Orleans to Clarksdale, Mississippi. The Blue Highway also boasts an impressive collection of links to other blues-related Web sites and listings of blues radio shows in the United States, Canada and throughout Europe. You’d have to find a virtual crossroads and sell your soul for enough time co check out all the Blues Highway has to offer, so bookmark it instead and drop by whenever the mean ol’ world’s got you down.

If the bios of the 20 blues greats at the Blue Highway don’t provide what you’re looking for, travel on to the Blue Flame Cafe (www.surfin.com/TheBlueFlameCafe), “an interactive biographical encyclopedia of the great blues singers and singers of the: blues, from Charley Patron to Stevie Ray Vaughan.” The site contains bios on over 100 blues artists, from early delta blues originators to such recent practitioners as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Most entries are complete with a photo and birth dates and many have sound dips. Although many contemporary players are not included on the list, there are entries for folklorist John Lomax and his son Alan, an appropriate tribute to the two men whose recordings of blues legends make it possible for them to be heard today.

Blues Bytes (www.bluenight.com/BluesBytes),a “joint production of Blue Night Productions and the Phoenix Blues Society,” is one of the better repository of blues record reviews on the Web. The site – just over a year old according to the “Back Issues” page – boasts an impressive collection of dose to 200 record reviews, many on New Orleans and Louisiana artists and most from recent records. Some local blues musicians reviewed at Blues Bytes include Marcia Ball, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Ruth Brown, Snooks Eaglin, Corey Harris, John Mooney, Kenny Neal, Johnny Sansone, Mem Shannon and Irma Thomas. Even if you don’t agree with all of the reviews you’ll leave the site impressed by primary contributor Bill Mitchell’s editorial output and consumption of new blues releases.

For the true blues novice, get a primer on the history and instrumentation of blues at The Blues Callin’ Me site (www.wam.umd.edu/-jamihn/blues.html). More versed blues fans and historians won’t be too impressed by the lack of detail in the history of blues, and some may even take offense at the blaring omissions – delta blues are almost completely ignored. However, younger rock, punk, rap and alternative fans may be intrigued by the site author’s assertion that all genres can be traced back to the blues.

There are also a number of blues Web sites that, while not providing a huge amount of information on the genre, or providing it in a language other than English, prove the widespread appeal of blues music and the influences it has beyond the world of music.

Take, for example, the 100 Mississippi Delta Blues Haiku site (www.lcc.net/-geoffw). Think blues music’s a strange influence on a style of literature almost 500 years its senior? Site creator and haiku author Geoffrey Wilson explains that delta blues and Japanese haiku, “are similar not only in their depiction of a way of life, and their sad nostalgia for a simpler, more rural lifestyle, but in surprisingly many of the motifs, backgrounds, images, and specific wildlife,” common to both. Still unconvinced? Check out the site and search for some inner serenity. Better yet, try it with some old Leadbelly recordings playing in the background. To test your aptitude at foreign languages in the context of the blues, check out the Blues On Line site (www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/7961/index.html), in Portuguese, or the Blues on the Net page (www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/2160/blues/framese.html).

Finally, a quick thanks to PC World’s Web Magazine for their inclusion of the OffBeat Web site in their “101 Top City Guides” feature in their November issue, and available on-line at www.webmagazine.com/features/nov97/cityguide. The article lists the best sites for music, restaurant, film and classified listings, “in 30 of the country’s biggest and most culturally jam-packed cities.” Only three New Orleans sites made the cut, and of the three OffBeat‘s site got the highest marks for music coverage.

This column is offered on our web site with hyperlinks to the pages and Internet resources mention here, along with three other columns, feature excerpts, reviews and listings. Visit http://offbeat.com.