Chasmal, your knowledge is impressive, your points interesting, and I agree with much of what you wrote... but not your conclusion. The blues ain't exactly dead. I was lucky enough to hear SRV play many times in small clubs, in his prime, in the years before he was "discovered." It was the real deal, blindingly original, not just mastery of an old form. Never caught on the records, but bootlegs exist. Part of the problem is that the way they are made now, there is no way the raw emotion of earlier blues will be caught and released on a recording, or that any professional musician, who needs to sell commercial records to survive, will even go for it. When someone asked his brother, Jimmy, if Stevie ever played anyting the same way twice, he replied, "Stevie never played anything the same way ONCE!" Yes, Buddy Guy, BB King, and others may be coasting now - they are way past "retirement age" for anyone leading that life - but John Lee Hooker never lost his primitive vibe, could still rock a joint like no one else on this planet, and continued evolving his blues to the end. It's just that the ones with the talent to move it forward are very rare, and hopefully, the next one hasn't yet come to our attention.
