Without a doubt, Mississippi Fred McDowell is my favorite. That hard, distinctive bass work is so steady while he works the higher strings with machine gun efficiency. Not easy to pull off especially playing a full slide (as opposed to a stubby slide or combinations of two slides) but he consistently amazes me in pulling it off. Now mix in that wonderful Delta voice and an ability to blend it so exactly with what he doing on guitar, and you have a guy that most Delta style players hear and go, "Wow!"

As for second favorites one can pick from anyone of the following who I also consider great: Son House, Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hpokins, Willie Brown, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Rev, Gary Davis, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter Jacobs and fir contemporaries; Corey Harris, Kelly Joe Phelps, Keb Mo and my main man, the Colonial hisself, James "Sparky" Rucker and his lovely wife Rhonda in harp.

Bobert