well, you're not alone... love the blues, too! Doesn't have to be Mississippi stuff...

Just like you, I'm not too much of a BB King or Buddy Guy fan... both of them did some great cuts, though... if it's about electric deep blues nothing beats T-Bone Walker, I think... and for the acoustic stuff I really like another Texas man, Lightnin' Hopkins, his lyrics and his singing, his guitar playing, his original vamps... everything is amazing about that cat....

My fave Mississippi man is Skip James, I guess... and not just the 1930s recordings... his 1960s LPs are great, too... that eerie counter tenor/ falsetto voice.... the Bentonia minor tuning and his other tunings... and those songs...

I could go on...

What I don't like about the blues, has nothing to do with the blues itself... it's these white journalists, rock roots mythology... Son House must have a lot of fun telling those dimwits about Robert Johnson and the devil...

Paul Oliver and Robert Palmer are worth reading, though!

Don't think that Sir Michael & Co. got the Wilkins sounds directly, probably via Muddy Waters, just like they might have learned about Robert Johnson through Elmore James, maybe... BTW, there's a guy Stephens pic, GS sitting next to his LP collection on the FB OM5966 page...

some other pre-war rural blues faves of mine:

Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Cotten, and of course Big Bill Broonzy! who is a little more sophisticated/ urban than some of the country cats, which reminds me of guitar players such as Lonnie Johnson and Clarence Williams, pianist LeRoy Carr and the great female blues singers Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox etc....

good compilations by Yazoo records!