You're not isolated anymore, Al, because now I know what you mean.

About volume: the blues is the music of people who are sad, tired, or angry. for each line, ask yourself which emotion it expresses. Sad or tired songs should be sung quietly. Anger call for loudness.

A good example of this is "The House of the Rising Sun". Here's a song sung by a person who's DYING, who's all alone, and is enveloped in shame, yet performers bellow it out with all the vigor of a football cheerleader.

Too many performances mimic the hard loudness of a performer trying to make himself heard over an inattentive audience in a bar. When we have a good audience, we can forget that style and concentrate on what the song says.