Guido van Rijn is a Dutch blues and gospel historian. His major historical work is a set of six books that examine the way blues and gospel artists experienced eleven 20th-century American presidents and their politics. In 1970, van Rijn co-founded the Dutch Blues and Boogie Organization. In the 70s, he organized a great many concerts by African-American blues artists in the Netherlands, culminating in the renowned Blues Estafette in Utrecht. He issued 25 blues LPs and CDs on his Agram label. Van Rijn received his Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1995 for Roosevelts Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR, which also received an award for excellence from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. In 2004, he published The Truman and Eisenhower Blues. In 2007 came Kennedys Blue, followed by President Johnsons Blues (2009), The Nixon and Ford Blues (2011), and The Carter, Reagan, Bush, Sr., Clinton, Bush, Jr., & Obama Blues (2012). At present, van Rijn is completing a five-part discography of the Paramount label for Agram Books, listing all issued and unissued recordings.
