The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.
I had never been able to believe that God would give us poor frail humans only one chance at making it -- that we would be assigned to some kind of hell because we failed during one experience of mortal life. . . . So the concepts of karma and reincarnation made logical sense to me.