Do any of today's black musicians play acoustic blues/roots music?

I'm talking about the music of Reverend Gary Davis, Etta Baker, Mississippi John Hurt and so many other greats. The only one I can come up with is Taj Mahal but what about the younger musicians of today? If you do a search on Youtube for the music of these great acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar players, it seems that the only people playing it and keeping it alive today are middle-aged white guys. What a shame that such a rich legacy of roots music has devolved into the "music" of Fitty Cent and P. Diddy. This isn't intended to be racist in any way, but I find it odd, that's all. What happened?

Cephas & Wiggins play primarily Piedmont blues ala Sonny & Brownie. They're good, but I prefer Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan (who are white)

Taj Mahal has returned to doing a lot of blues the last few years.

Chris Thomas King-plays everything from Blind Willie Johnson to Son House to originals.

As to your question-At the same time that young white kids (Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Brian Jones, and many, many others) were embracing the blues and rediscovering Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, etc. , young blacks were turning to James Brown, Stax, Motown, etc.. Blues was considered passe, or even worse, Uncle Tomming". One or two generations of young blacks stopped listening to the blues, playing the blues, or even talking about the blues. Unfortunately, their children and grandchildren were not exposed to this incredible music, while their white counterparts were via American & British rock stars.

Lenny Kravitz

Check out Ben Harper's LIVE FROM MARS 2 Disc album. Great live album, great mix of folk, blues, rock. He plays one of the rarest guitars in the world. The first disc is a little harder (up beat) but still great, and disc two is almost entirely acoustic, and very poetic. I don;t care much for his studio albums, but I love this Live album, and I recommend it to anyone.

Keb' Mo'

Check out Alvin Youngblood Hart.

the roots

keb mo , taj mahal, and (some thing) harris.

Yes, this is a phenominon that is dissapointing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Middle-aged White men playing blues music, but the fact that very few reletively young Black musicians perform Blues music is frustrating.

To answer your question, One musician worth checking out is: Eric Bibb.

Here are a few websites that can give you a great deal of information about Eric:

http://www.ericbibb.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bibb

Best Wishes,

Kevin Chisholm - American Guitarist

There are still some great "younger" black artists that play acoustic blues/roots music. Corey Harris is my personal favorite. His early CD's are all traditional blues style, but his last few have ventured into electric and more African and Reggae influences. Chris Thomas King is also a very adept traditional blues player. Check out his "The Roots of Chris Thomas King" CD. Keb' Mo, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Eric Bibb and Guy Davis are also worth checking out.

As far as what happened...blues and rap are more similar than you might realize. The attitude of rap is very similar to the attitude of early blues songs. Rappers still "sing" about women and how hard life is. Technology and culture have changed though. This is just how black musicians choose to express themselves now. I much prefer the blues though.

I know that Buddy Guy has a few acoustic cds out and play some of the standards. I've got the Lightnin' Hopkins box set (8 cds) and most of that is acoustic. It's great. The Jimi Hendrix "Blues" cd is all acoustic. I don't know of any young blacks doing the old blues standards (unfortunately).

There are lots of new mostly, or completely lack blues bands out on the road and CD.....you just need to search a little bit to find 'em, but it's well worth it.
Try L'il Ed & the Blues Imperials
The Mannish Boys
The Legendary Blues band (Bi-racial)
Bobby Rush
Michael Hills Blues Mob
James Blood Ulmer's albums (5 stars)
Joe Louis Walker'sBlues Band

The above were electric, roots players. I was saving a few of the best examples for this part of the answer.

Chris Thomas King- roots, acoustic, topical, actor, songwriter
The Neville Bros - impossible to categorize, but teriffic too.

Alvin Youngblood Hart - he can do it all, from Broonzy to the Stones. Great guitarist and vocalist...........historian too.
Irma Thomas - Nawlin's best of the best. Survivor.
Marcia Ball - Swampland piano blues, played by the best.
Lazy Lester - Best swamp harpist ever to grace Nawlin's on the last 70 years...Give it up for Lester!! Excello hitster.
Cephas & Wiggens - great Piedmont acoustic duet going strong still.

Bobo & the Trackmarks - Baton Rouge founded hard acoustic anti-govt. trad blues. Wanders fom 40's pre-war to post-war One of the first blues/rock hybrid protest albums that named people's fault.? The Trackmarks hit their targets, but what went wrong at naming the victims?

Albert King and B.B. King are blues masters.
They are black

Robert Cray, Daniella Cotton, Etta James, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Amos Lee

I think the fan base is largely white. But you have to remember that the Blues hasn't been popular music for almost a century. Jazz was popular music at one time, musical's music was popular at one time, classical music was popular at one time. Times change but I'm very appreciative of all of the musicians whether they are white, black, male or female, who keep the music alive.