But this thread highlights the problem with the blues for me; it's like the term "rock". Night Ranger is rock. Motorhead is rock. They are not at all similar in any way, shape or form, with the exception that the "bass player sings".
I LOVE the sort of "English blues derivative", ala Zeppelin. Sabbath (yes, they were blues based). I love what the Stones did with the blues, more than their early recitations. I love all that stuff. I, like Kotowboy, can do without the bad bar band version of a 12-bar with some guy that can scream trying to "sing". As with any genre, it gets killed by the clichés.
I'm a big fan of the southern blues, as distilled by bands like ZZ Top. As for the more pure players, I can listen to BB King play all day long; he loses me when he sings (veers toward the "some guy that can scream"). I like Albert King. I can take or leave Clapton; for every Clapton song I love ("White Room") there are two I detest ("I Shot The Sheriff"; "After Midnight").
I got to see SRV at UConn back in '88 (I think). It was Spring Weekend, it was early May, and while it SHOULD have been warm, it was also Storrs, Connecticut, and it was windy and rainy. He (and Double Trouble) were playing on the back of a flatbed truck, in the corner of the football "stadium" (this was before basketball hit it big, so the "stadium" was a slightly higher class high school field, up on the side of a hill), at around 4:00 in the afternoon or so (it was daylight). He was newly sober, and he fucking KILLED IT. I've never - to this day, with the possible exception of Ritchie Blackmore - seen a man "occupy" his instrument like he has. It was like an extension of his arms. He wasn't "fighting" it like some guitar players do, it was just so... smooth. I was really blown away by the purity of his craft. He owned it 100%.