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, it 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, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.
Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner, 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". A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s, Korner was instrumental in the formation of several notable British bands including The Rolling Stones and Free.
John Symon Asher Bruce was a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter known primarily for his contributions to the British supergroup Cream, which also included the guitarist-singer Eric Clapton and the drummer Ginger Baker. In March 2011 Rolling Stone readers selected him as the eighth greatest bass guitarist of all time. "Most musicians would have a very hard time distinguishing themselves if they wound up in a band with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker," the magazine said at the time, "but Jack Bruce was so gifted on the bass that he did it with ease."
Donald Christopher Barber OBE is an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit, he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Chris Barber's band. His providing an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner makes Barber a significant figure in the British rhythm and blues and "beat boom" of the 1960s.
Cyril Davies was an English blues musician, and one of the first blues harmonica players in England.
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
In 1961 Korner and Davies formed Blues Incorporated, the first amplified R&B band in Britain, and brought in singer Baldry (sometimes replaced by Art Wood), drummer Watts, bassist Bruce, and saxophonistDick Heckstall-Smith. It was an informal band: its membership was intended to be fluid.
Arthur "Art" Wood was a British blues, pop and rock singer, who led The Artwoods in the 1960s and subsequently became a graphic artist. He was the brother of Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones.
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.
The Ealing Jazz Club was a music venue on The Broadway, Ealing, in the west of London. Opened in January 1959, it became London’s first regular R&B venue with a performance by the influential Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies band Blues Incorporated.
Sir Michael Philip Jagger is an English singer, songwriter, actor, and film producer who gained worldwide fame as the lead singer and one of the founder members of the Rolling Stones. Jagger's career has spanned over five decades, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Jagger gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a countercultural figure.
Keith Richards is an English musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine called Richards the creator of "rock's greatest single body of riffs" on guitar and ranked him fourth on its list of 100 best guitarists in 2011. The magazine lists fourteen songs that Richards wrote with the Rolling Stones' lead vocalist Mick Jagger on its "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.
From 3 May 1962, Blues Incorporated secured a Thursday-night residency at the Marquee Club, which brought them to the attention of record producer and promoter Jack Good who arranged a recording contract with Decca Records resulting in the LP R&B from the Marquee, released in late 1962. [1] The album was actually recorded in the Decca studio and featured Baldry as lead singer with songs by Muddy Waters, Jimmy Witherspoon and Leroy Carr.
The Marquee Club was a music venue first located at 165 Oxford Street in London, when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. Its most famous period was from 1964 to 1988 at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, and it finally closed when at 105 Charing Cross Road in 1996, though the name has been revived unsuccessfully three times in the 21st century. It was always a small and relatively cheap club, located in the heart of the music industry in London's West End, and used to launch the careers of generations of rock acts.
Jack Good was a British television producer, musical theatre producer, record producer, musician and painter of icons. As a television producer, he was responsible for the early popular music shows Six-Five Special, Oh Boy!, Boy Meets Girls and Wham!! TV series, the first UK teenage music programmes. Good managed some of the UK's first rock and roll stars, including Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Jess Conrad and Cliff Richard.
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, along with American Decca's first president Jack Kapp and later American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the UK and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, a media conglomerate headquartered in Paris, France. The US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG.
Late in 1962 Davies disagreed with Korner's intention to add a brass section to the band and turn more towards jazz than blues, so left to form his own group, the Cyril Davies All-Stars, and was replaced by Graham Bond. Blues Incorporated found a new residency at the Flamingo club but, shortly afterwards, Bond, Bruce and Baker left to form the Graham Bond Organisation.
Blues Incorporated concentrated on live work rather than recording and the group only released two singles on Parlophone, "I Need Your Loving" / "Please Please Please Please" (1964) and "Little Baby" / "Roberta" (1965). In 1964 they released the LPs At The Cavern and Red Hot From Alex, with American Herbie Goins as lead singer and Danny Thompson, later of Pentangle, on bass. By the time of the group's last album Sky High (credited to Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated) in 1965, the group included Duffy Power on vocals. Korner dissolved the group in 1966.
Dick Heckstall-Smith (2004) The safest place in the world: A personal history of British Rhythm and blues, Clear Books, ISBN0-7043-2696-5 - First Edition: Blowing The Blues - Fifty Years Playing The British Blues
Harry Shapiro Alexis Korner: The Biography, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London 1997, Discography by Mark Troster
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John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, guitarist, organist and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band which has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.
John William "Long John" Baldry was an English-Canadian blues singer and voice actor. In the 1960s, he was one of the first British vocalists to sing the blues in clubs and shared the stage with many British musicians including the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Before achieving stardom, Rod Stewart and Elton John were members of bands led by Baldry. He enjoyed pop success in 1967 when Let the Heartaches Begin reached No. 1 in the UK, and in Australia where his duet with Kathi McDonald You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' reached No. 2 in 1980.
The Graham Bond Organisation were a British jazz/rhythm and blues group of the early 1960s consisting of Graham Bond, Jack Bruce (bass), Ginger Baker (drums), Dick Heckstall-Smith and John McLaughlin (guitar). They recorded several albums and further recordings were issued when the group's members achieved fame in progressive rock and jazz fusion. The spelling of the band's original name varied between releases, often depending on the intended audience. The British English spelled as "Organisation" or "ORGANisation", while in some other countries outside the UK spelled "Organization".
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.
David William Kelly is a British blues singer, guitarist and composer, who has been active on the British blues music scene since the 1960s. He has performed with the John Dummer Blues Band, Tramp, The Blues Band, and his own Dave Kelly Band.
Michael Waller was an English drummer, who played with many of the biggest names on the UK rock and blues scene, after he became a professional musician in 1960. In addition to being a member, albeit sometimes briefly, of some of the seminal bands of the 1960s, Waller played as a session musician with a host of UK and US artists and was famously known for never having a full drum kit whenever he turned up for recording sessions.
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.
R&B from the Marquee is an album by Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated released in November 1962 on Decca Records. Blues Incorporated was a British R&B band in the early 1960s, which was led by Alexis Korner and featured various musicians. Although never very successful commercially, it was extremely influential on the development of British rock music in the 1960s and later.
British rhythm and blues was a musical movement that developed in the United Kingdom between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and reached a peak in the mid-1960s. It overlapped with, but was distinct from, the broader British beat and more purist British blues scenes, attempting to emulate the music of American blues and rock and roll pioneers, such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. It often placed greater emphasis on guitars and was often played with greater energy.
The All-Stars were a short-lived English blues combo active in the early-mid 1960s that later evolved into a studio supergroup. Originally known as the Cyril Davies (R&B) All-Stars, their later recordings are often credited to the Immediate All-Stars due to their strong ties to Immediate Records. In 1999, the group reformed as the Carlo Little All-Stars.
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.
Klooks Kleek was a jazz and rhythm n’ blues club at the Railway Hotel, West Hampstead, North West London. Named after a 1956 album by jazz drummer Kenny Clarke entitled Klook's Clique, the club opened on 11 January 1961 with special guest Don Rendell and closed nine years later on 28 January 1970 after a session by drummer Keef Hartley’s group.
The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club ran between 1957 and 1961 at the Round House public house at the junction of Wardour Street and Brewer Street in Soho, London. Established by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner, it hosted many visiting American blues performers and was an important catalyst in developing British blues music, R&B, and ultimately British rock music.
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