I enjoyed this thread and thought I'd mention Ray Charles. He may not be pure blues, but if not, it's as close as you can get. His Atlantic Recordings blew the doors off the racial barrier in American popular music, in my opinion. At a time when TV was pretty static, he sat more or less in one place for the camera, smiled all the time and was ALWAYS IN TOP FORM. And as a blind man, he could not possibly represent a threat to any sighted individual. So white America was willing to actually take a moment out to LISTEN to him, and fortunately for us he was and always will be the best. Listen to the Atlantic recordings from the fifties. Or his 'Modern Sounds in Country Music'. 'Born to Lose', 'You Win Again'...he brought a blues sound to those country songs, and he got away with it. Ray Charles paved the way for James Brown and those who came after, but he also pointed the way back to the older bluesmen y'all are talking about.