Gatemouth Brown died from lung cancer at age 81. He'd evacuated from his home in Louisiana to his town of origin in Texas for the hurricane. I think "eclectic" describes Gatemouth.
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17352,00.html
http://www.gatemouth.com

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Little Milton died of a stroke in Memphis. "Little Milton made his first record by playing guitar for Willie Love in 1951 and he was spotted by Ike Turner, who recommended him to Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records. Little Milton recorded for Sun in 1953/54 and although his records, "Lookin' For My Baby", "Beggin' My Baby" and a fine rumba blues, "Somebody Told Me", showed promise, Phillips dropped his black artists once he had found Elvis Presley." From his bio at Stax Records.

I was playing a gig one night in a dumpy bar. Little Milton's band came in. One of the guys stopped me and asked, "Who are you guys, really?" I told him how most of the guys had been on labels. He said something about visiting bars and knowing bar bands and we didn't sound like a bar band. He just wanted to know about everyone for his own edification. They stuck around and listened and danced until the bar closed at 2 am.
http://www.littlemilton.com/welcome.html

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R.L. Burnside is one of those guys who lived another life and then at an old age found fame doing what he loved. He died in the hospital in Memphis. I think I first hear of R.L. when I was at a friend's house and he put on some sort of remix and resampled Blues record that featured R.L. Burnside. If you can get your hands on one of these then it'll give you an idea of how remix and loop techniques can come together to change a song and performance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4207034.stm