"Today's blues in the African-American community is soul blues," [Malcolm Anthony] said. "A lot of time I get people in my store who say they don't like blues, but they're dancing to what I'm playing. They thought blues was only a solo guy sitting on the porch, something bad happened to him, and he's moaning his heart out."

Clarksdale is a pilgrimage site for blues fans around the world, a place they aspire to visit once in their lives. "We had a guitar player from Amsterdam here," said Roger Stolle, who runs a store that sells blues recordings, books and local handicrafts. "He got to sit in for a few songs with a couple of local blues guys. He was almost in tears. It was the best moment of his life. And he was good, too."

The strongest affirmation that blues is alive and thriving, however, may be coming not from Mississippi but from the Music Maker Relief Foundation of Hillsborough, N.C. In the last few years it has produced several dozen recordings of largely unknown artists whose mastery of blues and other idioms has surprised some who believed these traditions were dying out. From the big-throated north Mississippi blues of Robert Belfour to the lilting Piedmont guitar of 89-year-old Etta Baker, these artists prove the vibrancy of blues tradition.