We were sorry to hear recently of the death of Paul Oliver, international authority on the history of the blues. He lived and worked in Oxford for many years, and we were privileged to have him in our audience on several occasions. Having first heard the blues in wartime England, he travelled America in the 1960s, doing interviews and field recordings of the early generation of blues musicians, and introducing them to a wider public with his books. Astonishingly this was really a sideline to his 'day job' in architectural history, which led him eventually to Oxford Brookes University. Here's what the New York Times had to say: www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/arts/music/paul-oliver-authority-on-the-blues-dies-at-90.html