The blues may not be dead, but so many great artists of an earlier generation are dying off, and the genre is NOT particularly popular among the masses of contemporary African Americans.

There are plenty of white artists who understand and interpret the blues (just as there are plenty of pretenders & wannabes), while there are relatively few "young" black blues artists. ("Young" meaning young enough to still be alive). Taj, Keb Mo, Chris Thomas King, and who else?

A preponderance of Caucasian players at a 21st century blues event should not be a surprise, nor should it in any way invalidate the event's "authenticity." That's who digs the blues these days.

Now, if a longrunnig blues event offered all-white lineups twenty years ago and more, that's different. Such an event probably WAS somewhat lame back then.