seven venues

With an awards agenda that spans 26 categories and a 46-act lineup that will perform 29 sets over six-plus hours, the 30th Blues Music Awards in Memphis Thursday will embrace a typically sprawling array of styles, from rural acoustic to uptown jump.

But unprecedented this year is the nine-decade age range among the more than 100 nominees and presenters, a span that almost covers the genre's history.

At the pioneering end are the last two touring original Mississippi Delta bluesmen, pianist Willie "Pinetop" Perkins and singer/guitarist David "Honeyboy" Edwards.

Perkins, 95, who began playing in the late 1920s and is best known as a sideman to Muddy Waters, will present an award named after him to the top piano player. Edwards, 93, a friend of the legendary Robert Johnson who claims to have been present at his mystery-shrouded death in 1938, is nominated in the traditional blues album category for Roamin' and Ramblin', featuring sessions from 2007 and the mid-1970s.

"I feel good all right, good about that," Edwards says. "I've been around long enough ... and the blues is something that stays on your mind."

The future is heralded by Tupelo, Miss.-based Homemade Jamz Blues Band, consisting of the Perry siblings, singer/guitarist Ryan, 17; bass player Kyle, 14; and drummer Taya, 10. Their 2008 debut album, Pay Me No Mind, is nominated in the new-artist category and features electrified Chicago- and raucous juke-joint-style songs written by their father/manager, Renaud, an ex-serviceman and amateur musician. On some songs, Ryan and Kyle play homemade guitars made from auto parts.

Taya, of course, earns the right to sing the blues by virtue of dealing with two older brothers. ("I'm actually pretty happy," she says, "traveling all over the world and meeting people.") But her siblings ("She bosses us around," Kyle says) are still feeling their way toward heartbreaks and headaches.

"I just try to have a super-good time, and when I get ready to sing, I try to put myself in the person's situation," says Ryan, who was influenced by B.B. King, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. "I call it good acting."

Says Kyle: "If you've been through hard times, it can help. But if you're creative and use your head, you can come up with nice tunes and lyrics."

The Perrys, who started playing together as a trio three years ago (the brothers had worked briefly with another drummer), will tour Europe and play the domestic festival circuit this year, and they plan to release a second album this summer. Though they've played with fellow nominee B.B. King and received his blessing, they have yet to meet Edwards on the road.

Their Delta elder just recently learned of the group himself but has this advice for them: "If you're doing everything to make yourself better, you get it in fractions, and it adds up. In a long time, it will run up and be worth it."