Don't talk to Charlie Musselwhite about the good old days -- he's been there, and he's here to tell you that the blues have never been healthier than they are today.

"I've got more work than I can handle -- it just keeps coming. I can't complain. There's plenty of work; at least I'm keeping real busy," the harmonica player said from his home north of the Bay Area.

Musselwhite, who plays at the Belly Up on Sunday, was part of the first wave of white kids who picked up the blues from the black community that birthed it. Born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tenn., during the 1950s, Musselwhite really dove into the music when he moved to Chicago in the early '60s in search of work.

Even then, he said, young blacks were abandoning the blues form and moving on to other styles.

"When I was going into the blues clubs in Chicago in 1962, there wasn't anybody my age in those clubs. Of course, there wasn't anybody white, either. I worked in factories in Chicago, and when I would say I went to see Muddy Waters, the black guys my age couldn't believe it. They'd say, 'Man, you got to get with the times. That's old people's music.' They were just astounded."

While Musselwhite said the blues audience today is overwhelmingly white, he added that "there are black fans of blues, there are players, too. Blues isn't the Top 40, so you get a smaller audience no matter how you want to look at it, but it's a steady audience."

From Musselwhite, George "Wild Child" Butler and Paul Butterfield in the 1960s through William Clarke and Sugar Blue in the '70s to Kenny Neal in the '90s, there has been a steady stream of new blues harmonica players coming up. While there hasn't been a big-name harpist to arrive of late, with more emphasis on guitarists and singers, Musselwhite says he's hearing lots of great blowing in his travels.

"There are a lot of great harp players around; it's nice to see girls playing harmonica, too. Right here in my neighborhood there's a Mexican girl who plays," he said, also mentioning a female player from Detroit going by the stage name of Sunny Girl (an apparent nod to the two legendary bluesmen who both played under the name of Sonny Boy Williamson).

"Traveling around the world I hear harmonica players everywhere -- it's great. Mostly people are interested in the techniques blues harmonica players use. The blues players really have the respect of the harp players; blues players have been the real innovators."

While most blues harpists play a diatonic harmonica, which can be played in only the key it is tuned to, some jazz players use a chromatic harp, which allows them to change key midsong. Musselwhite, a diatonic player, said there's a friendly rivalry between players of the two kinds of harmonicas.

"They're really two different instruments. The chromatic has a button on it so you can get the sharps and flats; the diatonic you have to have all kinds of techniques to get those notes.

"The old-timers that play from the Harmonica Rascals time, those guys kind of look down on the diatonic players, like we're not really musicians, kind of snooty about it."

Although he's lived in California for 30 years and plans to keep his house here, Musselwhite says he's spending more time in his native state of late.

"You go down to Mississippi, and the blues is alive and well. You go into the little juke joints and they're still playing the music like it never left there.

"I have a place down in Clarksdale I'm working on. They have the Delta blues museum; Morgan Freeman has a nightclub there called Ground Zero. All kinds of juke joints and good food, and you can really have yourself a time. That's why I'll have a second place there."

Not that he spends too much time at either home, not with all the touring and recording he does.

"When I look at what's going on today compared to what was going on when I first started out … when I started out, you could only hear the blues in these small clubs. Today, there are blues festivals and blues cruises and blues magazines and books about the blues.

"Blues is tough; it ain't gonna die."

Charlie Musselwhite and Tommy Castro

When: 7 p.m. April 22

Where: Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach

Tickets: $20-$22

Info: (858) 481-8140

Web: bellyup.com