Indeed. Jeff Beck tells the story of an early Yardbirds tour to the USA and the band could not believe that Americans were taking them seriously! A lot of the young whites were hearing the imported version from white Brits before they actually heard their own American blues masters! BB King, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker all gave the Brits credit for making their music popular again. It may have been unjust, but at that time the originals had slipped below the radar. Had it not been for the British blues boom, many of us would never have heard of Robert Johnson, BB, Muddy Waters, MJH and a host of other greats.