West Coast Blues

A couple more came to mind.

Little Charlie and the Nightcats, later Rick Estrin and the Nightcats

Rick Estrin, vocals and harp, always had been the frontman but made it official when Little Charlie, guitar, decided to get off the road. Rick's vocals may be an aquired taste so check out some samples on Amazon before buying. These guys are a great party band in the West Coast Blues style.

Check out Marcia Ball. She's not West Coast Blues but she knows how to get a party going. Her most recent, Roadside Attractions, is a great place to start. She plays in a New Orleans R&B style but draws from a lot of Blues and R&B styles.

John, it depends on which album you're talking about. Taj covers a lot of territory.

+1 on Tonny Castro and Ronnie Earl. Great choices. How about Robbie Laws. Studied under Earl I think. Very similar. Plays Portland and Seattle quite a lot.

The late Robert Lucas who hailed from Long Beach gets a nod. Late in his career he ended up fronting Canned Heat.

Second the Marcia Ball. My favorite blues players include Dave Alvin, and, some of the selected tracks done by Los Lobos.

Thanks for the suggestions. One of the things I like about this genre is that there is a wide variety of artists to explore. Marty, I agree with you about Danny Gatton, one of my favorites, and Clarence Gatemouth being more of a Tx/LA. style. I brought up Gatemouth because we listened to Live From the New Orleans Jazzfest cd I got from the Jazzfest website. It was recorded right before he died and is good fun. Taj Mahal is in a class by himself. His back up band,the Phantom Blues Band, has a couple of great releases. I think Ronnie Earl is one of the best guitar players performing today. If you like Ronnie, you will enjoy Kirk Fletcher's latest. Kirk has played with Roomful of Blues and 2000 Lb's of Blues. Kim Wilson, another former Roomful of Blues frontman, has some decent solo material as well.Stay thirsty my friends.