I'm looking for blues artists, albums, and songs (or if this is a subgenre of blues, that would be great) that rely heavily on slide guitar like this song, particularly the first 30 seconds. Kinda gives off an atmosphere of being in a desert wasteland.

Blind Willie Johnson would be my first recommendation - famously used a bottleneck as a slide. "Dark Was the Night" is his most famous song, but an anomaly inasmuch as it features no words.

That song was ok. I clicked around listening to other songs of his, and none of them were "desolate" enough.