I've wondered about this briefly and realized:

Modern blues is literally pop music on the blues scale. lyrics, almost as shitty.

Instrumentation... OK, luckily there are no heavily electronic trends in modern blues yet. But if we're excluding blues rock, pretty much all I got is Tom Waits, and you may also wanna check out The Dirt Diary (I believe flagamuffin told me about him)-- he did a great cover of Waits' Gun Street Girl. E- In hindsight I'm an idiot, there is an absolute ocean of soul-wrenching, ground-shaking blues vocalists and musicians that aren't famous or don't write/release their own albums, like a black singer for their church. It's certainly not dead, I kinda convinced myself only blues rock was still thriving.

Blues is no longer an exciting creative endeavor because it's natural routes of exploration are literally everything we have today. It has already evolved, and everyone trying to play the blues nowadays isn't trying to be a pioneer, they're takin the same ol', good ol' blues scale and riffing on their sufferings as identically as possible to the John Lee Hookers of a century past.

Now blues rock may be a different story cause it blends into this massive world of rock and pop and alternative that can churn out a band from the White Stripes to Mumford and Sons or whatever. Bur over time uou're still gonna hear the same music-- just like pop -- though your dance might be a little groovier and your flannel a little checkered-er. Its all the same stuff in the end.