I hav'nt read every message so if this has been covered ,sorry. As a musician who has played guitar for 30 yrs I have an opinon on this. Firstly the question asked here is valid and innocent enough and I'm not out flame anyone just impart some of my limited wisdom. I believe that it is not possible for the likes of Eric or S.R.V. (one of my favourites) to be Blues guitarists. They are blues imitators! Great ones! and there's plenty of them out there...to reproduce the scales and inflections not matter how well is simply that...reproduction...well that's what music is you say, well yes and no. My question is what is a blues musician? And in the history of blues music lies the answer. Blues music and it's scales were derived from the natural inflections of the speaking patterns of the people of the region it was created unless you are rasied with these speach inflections anything else is imitating no matter how good.
It's a bit like saying your Italian just because you've learned the language. I'm not anal about this, or anything really and dont let this detract from me enjoying and learning from these great musicians but a white boy raised in the UK a true blues guitarist? I wonder what Eric would say. And before I get flamed, I understand the need for genre identification, and blues imitation is still blues..is'nt it???
It's a bit like saying your Italian just because you've learned the language. I'm not anal about this, or anything really and dont let this detract from me enjoying and learning from these great musicians but a white boy raised in the UK a true blues guitarist? I wonder what Eric would say. And before I get flamed, I understand the need for genre identification, and blues imitation is still blues..is'nt it???