Some great advice here. Take Frank Proffit's with a grain of salt though. Earl Scruggs was an amazingly evocative musician well into the late nineteen fifties. I think the sheer amount of playing he did (and his health problems) got to him and he did end up sounding mechanical and sloppy...but he left some wonderful recordings. I think many of the "hill" musicians just found him a bit "slick".

Never confuse technique for "mechanical". Some folks just "swing" and others don't. You'll find that you'll be making decisions on which players move you more than others and you may find that the ones you really like, "swing" like crazy.

Some of my personal favourites really swing: Bix Beiderbecke, Norman Blake, Django, Blind Boy Fuller, Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Lil Hardin-Armstrong, Artie Shaw, Dock Boggs, Josh Graves (amazing), Doc Watson,...oh the list goes on and on.

Rick