Many don't know that the BBluesman moniker came from Brooklyn Bluesman. Where did Brooklyn Bluesman come from? Well it was a "play" on Ralph Machio's "bluesman from Long Island representation" in Crossroads. This scene is one of my favorites,certainly from about any music-themed movie. The playing by both Steve Vai and Ry Cooder (the guitarist playing all of Ralph's parts) was stellar and this was some of the best guitar duel footage from the big screen.
This movie was my introduction to Steve Vai who happens to be from Long Island, although not truly a bluesman. he was oneof the early adopters of the rack-style rig with overblown sound that you can hear in the video above. He played for Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and regularly toured as part of G3 with friend and mentor Joe Satriani, in addition to many solo projects.
Ry Cooder has done many soundtracks and is a true musical chameleon stylistically, having recorded guitar music of many genres and with many great musicians: David Lindley and Ali Farka Toure to name a couple. I've even heard the term ethno-musicologist used in talking about Ry. He certainly is a distinctive slide guitarist and has great control continually making great eclectic music.
As for me-well I still play guitar some but spend more time listening to music,shooting photographs, and blogging than I do playing guitar. Now my son Kevin wants to take guitar lessons so maybe someday he'll be a "bluesman from Taiwan", wouldn't that be something?
