A true American musical hero, the South Carolina singer/guitarist Josh White became a successful blues recording artist as a young man in the 1920s and '30s. Already exceedingly eclectic, his style mixed traditional blues sounds with gospel and folk. After White moved to New York, he expanded his horizons even further to encompass jazz and urban pop. From there, his move to acting in films and on Broadway seems a natural one in retrospect, but it was greeted with suspicion by roots-music purists at the time.