Ellington, Bowie, Farka touré, Fahey, Coltraine (Alice and John), Ives, Staples, Hendrix, Zorn, Holiday, Hendrix, Khan (Chaka and Nusrat), Gershwin, Marley, Weill, Williams, Santana, Berlin, Reed (Jimmy and Ola Belle and Lou)... and on and on...
Blues is an indelible ingredient, an element, a plaintive echo connecting so much of the last century's music together. To focus on it as a discrete genre seems to be the problem here. I agree with those who aren't inspired by mere appropriation and repetition. Personally, Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn leave me cold... but to dismiss the blues wholesale is like dismissing the oxygen atom in water, or perhaps more appropriately, to dismiss the color blue?
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