Sponsored in part by KDHX, St. Louis Bluesweek gave the city a chance to revisit its nationally-recognized blues roots. Closing out the epic week of blues was the Soulard Blues Cruise.

I first heard the blues when I was a girl. Transported from their Delta homes and left to the big city, my raucous aunts would pay the bills by holding rent parties in their basements, selling fish dinners and taking furtive sips from small flasks of whiskey nestled in their ample bosoms and swaying their hips to blue, wailing notes well past dawn.