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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 ...
The British blues boom overlaped with this bands. The most important band were John Mayall´s Blues Breakers and Fleetwood Mac. In the late 1960s Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After and Free played the first blues rock in Britain. But Blues still had a bias in Britain. American bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Eddie Taylor, and Freddie King are ...
Wizz Jones. Jo Ann Kelly. Dave Kelly. Danny Kirwan. Alexis Korner [ 2 ] Paul Kossoff. Hugh Laurie. Alvin Lee [ 2 ] Aynsley Lister.
- Origins
- Jazz
- Skiffle
- Folk
- Development
- Major Acts
- Decline
- Revivals
In the early 1950s blues music was largely known in Britain through blues-influenced boogie-woogie, and the jump blues of Fats Waller and Louis Jordan. Imported recordings of American artists were brought over by African American servicemen stationed in Britain during and after World War II, merchant seamen visiting the ports of London, Liverpool, ...
The British rhythm and blues scene developed in London out of the related jazz, skiffle and folk club scenes of the 1950s. The first of these scenes, that of jazz, had developed during the Second World War as a reaction to swing, consciously re-introducing older elements of American jazz, particularly that of New Orleans to produce trad jazz. This ...
Lonnie Johnson played at the Royal Festival Hall in 1952 on a bill opened by a group led by the young Lonnie Donegan. Donegan became the key figure in the development of the British skiffle "craze", beginning in Ken Colyer's Jazzmen by playing American folk and blues songs, particularly those derived from the recordings of Huddie Leadbetter, during...
Until the mid-1950s in Britain the blues was seen as a form of folk music. When Broonzy toured England he played a folk blues set to fit British expectations of American blues, rather than his current electric Chicago blues. Skiffle clubs included the 'Ballad and Blues' club in a pub in Soho, co-founded by Ewan MacColl. In its early stages these cl...
Blues Incorporated
Blues harpist Cyril Davies ran the London Skiffle Club at the Roundhouse public house in London's Soho, which served as a focal point for British skiffle acts. Like guitarist Alexis Korner, he had worked for Chris Barber, playing in the R&B segment Barber introduced to his show and as part of the supporting band for visiting US artists. They began to play together as a duo and in 1957, deciding their central interest was blues, they closed the skiffle club and reopened a month later as the Lo...
Expansion of the scene
Early British rhythm and blues bands like Blues Incorporated found that folk clubs would not accept amplified blues performances. However, many London trad jazz clubs moved over to the style. In addition to the Roundhouse and the Marquee in central London, these included The Flamingo, the Crawdaddy Club, Richmond, where the Rolling Stones first began to gain attention, Klooks Kleek, The Ealing Club and the Eel Pie Island Hotel. Blues clubs were appearing in the capital at such a rate that in...
Peak
1964 was the year of most rapid expansion and the peak of the British R&B boom. It has been estimated that there were 300 rhythm and blues bands in England at the beginning of the year and over 2,000 by the end. In June 1964 John Lee Hooker's 1956 "Dimples" reached number 23 on the UK charts during a stay of 10 weeks. The song was chosen by the Spencer Davis Group as their May 1964 debut single and the Animals covered it on their first album. Howling Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning", released in...
The Rolling Stones
The most commercially successful act in the genre, were the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, who had renewed their childhood association after discovering a shared interest in R&B records, were introduced to guitarist Brian Jones through Alexis Korner, after a Blues Incorporated gig at the Ealing Jazz Club. Blues Incorporated contained two other future members of the Rolling Stones: Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts. Formed in London in 1962, Jones took their name from a track on t...
Other London bands
Other London-based bands that pursued a similar course to the Rolling Stones included the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Downliners Sect, the Pretty Things, Gary Farr and the T-Bones and Pink Floyd. The Yardbirds began as the Metropolis Blues Quartet. By 1963 they had acquired Eric Clapton as a lead guitarist and were acting as the backing band for Sonny Boy Williamson on his British tour. They earned a formidable reputation as a live act, developing frantic improvised guitar–harmonica "rave-ups",...
Provincial groups
Bands to emerge from other major British cities included the Animals from Newcastle, Them from Belfast and the Spencer Davis Group and the Moody Blues from Birmingham. None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, often relying on sources that included Brill Building and girl group songs for their hit singles, but it remained at the core of their early albums. The Animals' sound was characterised by the keyboards of Alan Price and the powerful vocals of Eric Burdon. They moved to L...
By 1967 most of the surviving major British R&B acts had moved away from covers and R&B-inspired music to psychedelic rock, and from there they would shift into new subgenres. Some, like Jethro Tull followed bands like the Moody Blues away from 12-bar structures and harmonicas into complex, classical-influenced progressive rock. Members of the next...
British R&B continued to be played in the Northern Soul club scene, where early soul records, particularly those of Motown, were highly prized. There were also bands on the London pub rock circuit. Occasional R&B-based pub rock acts like Dr Feelgood managed to build a following through tireless touring. They topped the British charts with live albu...
January 7, 1964, England). The Bluesbreakers The influential British blues band the Bluesbreakers in London, 1967. Pictured are (from left) Mick Taylor, Chris Mercer, Keith Tillman, Keef Hartley, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and John Mayall. (more) The Rolling Stones British rock band the Rolling Stones incorporated blues into their music and were ...
Lodge provided a two-part song "House of Four Doors" set either side of Thomas's epic piece. Hayward began playing sitar and incorporating it into Moody Blues music ("Voices in the Sky", "Visions of Paradise", "Om"), having been inspired by George Harrison. Hayward's "Voices in the Sky" charted as a single in the UK (No. 27), as did Lodge's ...
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Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band formed in London in 1967 by guitarist and singer Peter Green. [6] Green recruited drummer Mick Fleetwood, guitarist and singer Jeremy Spencer and bassist Bob Brunning, with John McVie replacing Brunning a few weeks after the band's first public appearance at the 1967 National Jazz & Blues Festival in Windsor.
