Enjoyed reading your story John.  I applaud both your excellent taste in musicians and your recognition of the potential bloggers offer for marketing artists.     
I stumbled over a newly launched blog just a few months before you began reaching out to the blogging community in 2006, that would be prove to be proof of your theory.  I saw first hand the interest and loyal fan community the blogger generated for the artist,  but didn't realize how truly unique his site was until it went dark.  There wasn't anything comparable then (for any artist) and, while there are many more artist sites now, I still haven't found anyone doing it as well, imho.... except for his new site he launched in January of 2008 of course. ;)