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Alexis Korner | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner |
Also known as | "Father of British Blues" |
Born | Paris, France | 19 April 1928
Died | 1 January 1984 55) London, England | (aged
Genres | Blues, blues rock |
Occupations | Musician, singer-songwriter, historian, broadcaster |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, acoustic & electric guitar, mandolin, piano [1] |
Years active | 1955–1984 |
Labels | Decca, Polydor, Spot Records, CBS Records, Transatlantic Records, Fontana, RAK Records, Tempo, Brain Records, Liberty, Atlantic/Metronome, 77 Records, Warner Bros., Charisma |
Formerly of | Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, Free At Last, CCS, Snape |
Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". [2] A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s, [3] he was instrumental in the formation of several notable British bands including The Rolling Stones and Free. Korner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.
Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner was born on 19 April 1928 in Paris, France, [4] to an Austrian Jewish father and a mother of Greek, Turkish and Austrian descent. [5] [6] He spent his childhood in France, Switzerland and North Africa, and arrived in London in 1940 after the start of the Second World War. One memory of his youth was listening to a record by black pianist Jimmy Yancey during a German air raid. Korner said, "From then on all I wanted to do was play the blues." [7]
After the war, Korner played piano and guitar (his first guitar was built by friend and author Sydney Hopkins, who wrote Mister God, This Is Anna ) and in 1949 joined Chris Barber's Jazz Band [8] where he met blues harmonica player Cyril Davies. They started playing together as a duo, started the influential London Blues and Barrelhouse Club in 1955 and made their first record together in 1957. [4]
Korner made his first official record on Decca Records DFE 6286 in the company of Ken Colyer's Skiffle Group. His talent extended to playing mandolin on one of the tracks of this British EP, recorded in London on 28 July 1955. Korner encouraged many American blues artists, previously virtually unknown in Britain, to perform at the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club, which he established with Davies at the Round House pub in Soho. [9]
In 1961, Korner and Davies formed Blues Incorporated, [10] initially a loose-knit group of musicians with a shared love of electric blues and R&B music. [4] The group included, at various times, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, Graham Bond, Danny Thompson and Dick Heckstall-Smith. [4] It also attracted a wider crowd of mostly younger fans, some of whom occasionally performed with the group, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Geoff Bradford, Rod Stewart, John Mayall, and Jimmy Page. [11]
Although Cyril Davies left the group in late 1962, Blues Incorporated continued to record, with Korner at the helm, until 1966. However, by that time its originally stellar line-up (and crowd of followers) had mostly left to start their own bands. While his one-time acolytes, the Rolling Stones and Cream, made the front pages of music magazines all over the world, Korner was relegated to the role of 'elder statesman'. [4]
In 1966, Korner formed the trio Free At Last with Hughie Flint and Binky McKenzie. [4] Flint later recalled "I played with Alexis, right after leaving The Bluesbreakers, in a trio, which Alexis named Free At Last, a sort of mini and slightly restricted version of Blues Incorporated. Playing with Alexis was very loose. We would play anything from Percy Mayfield's ‘River's Invitation' to Charles Mingus' ‘Better Get It In Your Soul' – with lots of freaky guitar and bass solos. Alexis, like John Mayall had the most eclectic taste in music, very knowledgeable, and generous, and I am indebted to both of them for my wide approach to music". [12]
Although Free At Last was short-lived, Korner ensured its name lived on in part by christening another young group of aspiring musicians, Free. Korner was instrumental in the formation of the band in April 1968, and continued to mentor them until they secured a deal with Island Records.[ citation needed ] [13]
Although he himself was a blues purist, Korner criticised better-known British blues musicians during the blues boom of the late 1960s for their blind adherence to Chicago blues, as if the music came in no other form. He liked to surround himself with jazz musicians and often performed with a horn section drawn from a pool that included, among others, saxophone players Art Themen, Mel Collins, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and Lol Coxhill. [14]
While touring Scandinavia he formed the band New Church with guitarist and singer Peter Thorup. [4] They subsequently were one of the support bands at the Rolling Stones Free Concert in Hyde Park, London, on 5 July 1969. Jimmy Page reportedly found out about a new singer, Robert Plant, who had been jamming with Korner, who wondered why Plant had not yet been discovered. Plant and Korner were recording an album with Plant on vocals until Page had asked him to join "the New Yardbirds", a.k.a. Led Zeppelin. Only two songs are in circulation from these recordings: "Steal Away" and "Operator". [11] Korner gave one of his last radio interviews to BBC Midlands on the Record Collectors Show with Mike Adams and Chris Savory.
In the 1960s Korner began a media career, working initially as a showbusiness interviewer and then on ITV's Five O'Clock Club, a children's TV show. [4] Korner also wrote about blues for the music papers, and continued to maintain his own career as a blues artist, especially in Europe. Korner's main career in the 1970s was in broadcasting. In 1973, he presented a six-part documentary on BBC Radio 1, The Rolling Stones Story, [3] and in 1977 he established a Sunday-night show on Radio 1, Alexis Korner's Blues and Soul Show, which ran until 1981. [4] He also used his gravelly voice to great effect as an advertising voice-over artist.
In 1970, Korner and Thorup formed a big-band ensemble, CCS – short for "The Collective Consciousness Society" – which had several hit singles produced by Mickie Most, including a version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", which was used as the theme for BBC's Top of the Pops between 1970 and 1981. Another instrumental called "Brother" was used as the theme to the BBC Radio 1 Top 20/40 when Tom Browne/Simon Bates presented the programme in the 1970s. It was also used in the 1990s on Radio Luxembourg for the Top 20 Singles chart. This was the period of Korner's greatest commercial success in the UK. [11] In 1973, he provided a voice part for the Hot Chocolate single release Brother Louie. [15]
In 1973, he and Peter Thorup formed another group, Snape, with Boz Burrell, Mel Collins, and Ian Wallace, who were previously together in King Crimson. [4] Korner also played on B.B. King's In London album, and cut his own, similar "supersession" album; Get Off My Cloud, with Keith Richards, Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Nicky Hopkins and members of Joe Cocker's Grease Band. In the mid-1970s, while touring Germany, Korner established an intensive working relationship with bassist Colin Hodgkinson who played for the support act Back Door. [4] They would continue to collaborate right up until Korner's death. [11]
In 1978, for Korner's 50th birthday, an all-star concert was held featuring many of his above-mentioned friends, as well as Eric Clapton, Paul Jones, Chris Farlowe, Zoot Money and others, which was later released as The Party Album , and as a video. [4]
In 1981, Korner joined another "supergroup", Rocket 88, a project led by Ian Stewart based on boogie-woogie keyboard players, which featured a rhythm section comprising Jack Bruce and Charlie Watts, among others, as well as a horn section. [4] They toured Europe and released an album on Atlantic Records. He played in Italy with Paul Jones and the Blues Society of Italian bluesman Guido Toffoletti.
In 1950, Korner married Roberta Melville (died 2021), daughter of art critic Robert Melville. [16] He had a daughter, singer Sappho Gillett Korner (died 2006), and two sons, guitarist Nicholas 'Nico' Korner (died 1989) and sound engineer Damian Korner (died 2008).
Alexis Korner died in London from lung cancer on 1 January 1984, at the age of 55. [4]
Korner was posthumously inducted, by Keith Richards, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024 in the musical influence category. [17] [18] [19]
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers were an English blues rock band led by multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter John Mayall. The band has been influential as an incubator for British rock and blues musicians. Many of the best known bands to come out of Britain in the 1960s and 1970s had members that came through the Bluesbreakers at one time, forming the foundation of British blues music that is still played heavily on classic rock radio. Among those with a tenure in the Bluesbreakers are guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor, bassists John McVie, Jack Bruce and Tony Reeves, drummers Hughie Flint, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Fleetwood and Jon Hiseman, and numerous others.
John Brumwell Mayall was an English blues and rock musician, songwriter and producer. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians. A singer, guitarist, harmonica player, and keyboardist, he had a career that spanned nearly seven decades, remaining an active musician until his death aged 90. Mayall has often been referred to as the "godfather of the British blues", and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.
British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s, and reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s. In Britain, blues developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar, and made international stars of several proponents of the genre, including the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.
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Cyril Davies was an English blues musician, and one of the first blues harmonica players in England.
Richard Malden Heckstall-Smith was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most influential English blues rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for primarily playing tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophones, as well as piano, clarinet and alto saxophone.
Aynsley Thomas Dunbar is an English drummer. He has worked with John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Journey, Jefferson Starship, Nils Lofgren, Eric Burdon, Shuggie Otis, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Mick Ronson, Whitesnake, Pat Travers, Sammy Hagar, Michael Schenker, UFO, Michael Chapman, Jake E. Lee, Leslie West, Kathi McDonald, Keith Emerson, Mike Onesko, Herbie Mann and Flo & Eddie. Dunbar was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Journey in 2017.
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English rock/blues musician and vocalist, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.
CCS, sometimes written as C.C.S., was a British musical group, led by blues guitarist Alexis Korner. The name was derived as an abbreviation of Collective Consciousness Society.
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Anthony "Duster" Bennett was a British blues singer and musician. Based in London, his first album Smiling Like I'm Happy saw him playing as a one-man band, playing a bass drum with his foot and blowing a harmonica on a rack while strumming a 1952 Les Paul Goldtop guitar given to him in 1968 by Peter Green. Backed by his girlfriend Stella Sutton and the original Fleetwood Mac on three tracks, the album was well received. He remained popular on the local blues club scene until his death in a car crash in 1976.
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Colin Hodgkinson is a British rock, jazz and blues bassist, who has been active since the 1960s.
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, or simply Blues Incorporated, were an English blues band formed in London in 1961, led by Alexis Korner and including at various times Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Terry Cox, Ginger Baker, Art Wood, Long John Baldry, Ronnie Jones, Danny Thompson, Graham Bond, Cyril Davies and Dick Heckstall-Smith.
Duffy Power was an English blues and rock and roll singer, who achieved some success in the 1960s and continued to perform and record intermittently later.
Peter Eiberg Thorup was a Danish guitarist, singer, composer and record producer. He was one of the most important blues musicians in Denmark, and he was known outside his own country, when in the late 1960s he met Alexis Korner and the two formed the bands New Church, The Beefeaters, CCS, and later Snape.
C.C.S. was the second studio album of the British blues and jazz outfit CCS, led by guitarist Alexis Korner. This album is usually called C.C.S. 2 to avoid confusion with the first, eponymous album, even though that title cannot be found anywhere on the record or sleeve.
Geoffrey Frank Bradford was an English guitarist who played alongside British blues musicians in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Long John Baldry and Alexis Korner.
Hubert Leroy "Herbie" Goins was an American rhythm & blues singer. He worked mainly in England in the 1960s, notably with Alexis Korner and then as the leader of Herbie Goins & The Night-Timers. He later continued his career based in Sezze, Italy.
He was also the unlikely ground zero of British R&B; -- a Paris-born singer-guitarist of very non-Delta roots (Korner was part Greek, Turkish and Austrian)