"great performer" and "durability over time" is a chicken-and-egg situation, IMO, one suggests the other.

For me, greatness in a performer is an almost undefinable quality; I usually describe it as their having soul (whatever that means). That explains the greatness of those old blues guys - their sound is raw, rough, edgy but they put soul into their playing/singing.

Ask people who is/was the greatest electric guitarist ever, and most would probably name Hendrix. But for me it was Roy Buchanan. He had that soul thing that Hendrix, despite his technical brilliance, never had.