Artists like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader. Noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice, James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. His slide guitar technique earned him the nickname "King of the Slide Guitar".

John Clyde Copeland was an American Texas blues guitarist and singer. In 1983, he was named Blues Entertainer of the Year by the Blues Foundation. He is the father of blues singer Shemekia Copeland.

Earl Zebedee Hooker was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and John Lee Hooker and fronted his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk. He recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists. His "Blue Guitar", a slide guitar instrumental single, was popular in the Chicago area and was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters as "You Shook Me".

J. B. Lenoir was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, active in the Chicago blues scene in the 1950s and 1960s. In The Encyclopedia of Popular Music he is described as both an "extrovert R&B man in the leopard-skin jacket who chanted infectious trifles" and a "thoughtful and intelligent writer of starkly honest blues songs."

Leroy Carr was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Music historian Elijah Wald has called him "the most influential male blues singer and songwriter of the first half of the 20th century". He first became famous for "How Long, How Long Blues", his debut recording released by Vocalion Records in 1928.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was an American blues and blues-rock band from Chicago. Formed in the summer of 1963, the group originally featured eponymous vocalist and harmonicist Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, bassist Jerome Arnold, and drummer Sam Lay. The band added guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Mark Naftalin before recording their self-titled debut album, which was released in October 1965. The founding sextet were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, along with Billy Davenport, their drummer on their second album, East-West.