Hi Foolestroupe! Agreed; in something like the blues, or country, or even traditional tunes, there is an underlying formula that tends to dictate the structure. The people I consider to be really talented seem to be able to play outside the patterns and switch readily between genres, and are able to be proficient in the new genre almost immediately. Gardner (see here) has a theory of mutiple intelligences, suggesting that our traditional idea of academic intelligence is too limited. One of his 'intelligences' is a musical intelligence. Perhaps this exists independently of the ablity to sight read?
Tim