I've been to the Portland Blues festival three times, and it was before drinking age, so I know I didn't have booze-ears. (Maybe some secondhand-ganja-ears.) I think the blues are meant to be listened to live, because there's a lot of improvisation that goes on. Like folk music, new artists draw from the canon and often do covers, but unlike a lot of folk music, there's often layering of emotive guitar/harmonica/sax solos on top of the canonized groove. That groove comes as a function of the repetitive chorus. It's a shame that you're not asking for 60s or 70s blues, because that's basically all the blues I listen to! I'll not link Stevie Ray Vaughan, because you probably know his Some more traditional Mississippi blues: Some more modern blues: