Carlos Del Junco, Sandy Weltman and Paul deLay are my picks. Howard Levy is an original voice, but I am convinced that he is "not of this earth".
Paul seems to have the most original approaches, as he seldom mixes in "traditional" licks/ideas into his shows. Carlos does a nice blend of original concepts along with tributes to blues greats. Sandy is moving towards klezmer, but his earlier CD "The Sandroids" has a lot of humor and quirkiness moving through it - original, to be sure.
"Big Boy", by far, is Carlos' strongest release. His live CD is a lot of fun. Catching one of his live performances is the most fun. I understand that there are clips/interviews of him on his website as well as a portion of "Nine Below Zero" from his performance at Augusta Heritage Blues Week 2003 (on the www.augustaheritage.com website somewhere).
Even guys like Jason Ricci are learning ideas off of Carlos' recordings. Of couse, Jason plays them at warp speed.
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