For more than 50 years now, Delbert McClinton has been keeping the faith, continuing to deliver an impassioned, soulful mix of blues, R&B, country and rock ‘n’ roll.

But it wasn’t until about 20 years ago that he began to experience enough commercial success to be able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of those labors.

Now 70 years old, McClinton has been “in the business” — playing clubs, touring or making records — since he was a mere 17, in the late 1950s.

It was in 1990 — after he’d been cutting tough, gritty records and gigging on the blues circuit for about 30 years — that McClinton first drew the attention of the masses. That’s when his duet with Bonnie Raitt, “Good Man, Good Woman” won a rock-duo Grammy award — and considerably ramped up McClinton’s public profile.

McClinton, who comes to The Ark on Wednesday for a sold-out show, has also snagged some Grammys of his own this past decade: He won statues in the Contemporary Blues category for his albums “Nothing Personal” (2001) and “Cost of Living” (2005).

But as any McClinton fan knows, his music is not confined to the blues idiom. Part of what makes him such an appealing and compelling performer — and what helps keep his music fresh — is that he seamlessly interweaves blues, country, R&B, folk, gospel, rock 'n' roll and even some jazz on occasion.

“I love everything about him--his gritty, bluesy voice; his compelling songs; his musicianship….,” says Patti Stoll, a Delbert fan who works as a marketing copywriter at the Ann Arbor office of Infor, a Georgia-based provider of business software. “This guy can play just about anything. In fact, I like him so much that when my bass guitar teacher asked me what songs I wanted to learn, the first thing out of my mouth was Delbert's ‘Go On.’

“But yeah, his eclecticism is definitely part of the appeal. That's what drew me to him in the first place, the way he mixes genres — and does it so well. I'm definitely more into his blues side, but I like the way he melds blues, roots rock and country.” Stoll guesses that she’s been a McClinton fan for about 20 years. “I was living in Chicago when a friend turned me on to Delbert's music. I'd never heard of him before, and I was blown away,” says Stoll, who cites “Go On,” “Miss You Fever,” “Blues As Blues Can Get,” and “I Used to Worry” as her favorite McClinton songs.

Evidence of McClinton’s restless eclectic spirit can be heard on his latest album, “Acquired Taste,” from ’09. It was produced by Don Was, the former Detroiter and seemingly omnipresent producer who has helmed discs for the likes of Raitt, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Kris Kristofferson and many others.

But McClinton’s versatility does not tempt him to record all-over-the-place albums where the songs hop arbitrarily from one genre to another. Instead, he intuitively draws on all of his influences in a way that results in music that sounds unforced and organic.

Some of the stronger cuts on “Acquired Taste” are the hard blues of “I Need to Know,” the jazzy “People Just Love to Talk,” the syncopated “She’s Not There Anymore,” the steamy “Starting a Rumor,” the country-shuffling “Can’t Nobody Say I Didn’t Try” and the New Orleans R&B-inflected “Mama’s Little Baby.”

A native of Lubbock, Texas — which also produced such roots-music luminaries as Buddy Holly and Joe Ely — McClinton started out playing smoky Fort Worth blues joints, blowing the blues harp and playing in the house band that backed his heroes, like Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

McClinton had an early taste of Texas success in 1960 when, still just a youngster, he recorded a cover of Williamson’s “Wake Up Baby” — which became the first recording by a white artist that was ever played on the Fort Worth blues station, KNOK.

There’s also the apocryphal story about how, when he was touring England in the early ‘60s, McClinton taught a young John Lennon how to play harmonica. McClinton deflates a bit of that legend, though, explaining that Lennon already knew how to play, but just asked McClinton a lot of questions about how he played certain tunes or riffs on the harp.

Actually, McClinton made his first mark as a songwriter when Emmylou Harris took his downcast lament, “Two More Bottles of Wine,” put a country-pop spin on it, and notched a No. 1 country-chart hit with it in 1978.

McClinton takes great satisfaction in the fact that, over the last 20 years, he’s attained — and maintained — success without making compromises in a business that usually seems only too happy to fixate on superficiality and banality.

“Music now is about ‘How long will people buy this?’ and ‘How much can we sell before it’s over?’ and ‘What does she look like?’ and ‘Can she wear that a little lower?’ ” McClinton said in an interview with The Tennessean. “That doesn’t impact me at all, and it’s not my quest. I just want to express myself musically and have fun while I’m doing it. When that happens, it’s magic. And it’s got to be felt magic, not contrived magic.

“People can’t put up with listening to stuff that don’t move them, at least not for long. I know I can’t. And I don’t. And what we’re doing makes a lot of people happy, and those people let me know that, and then that makes me happy.”

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.