"The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country - an atrocity from which we can never fully recover - the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was higher than the suicide rate among slaves. Murry says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it is being played. So please remember that." - Kurt Vonnegut
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