British blues
Encyclopedia
British blues is a form of music derived from American blues
that originated in the late 1950s and which reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when 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
, Eric Clapton
, Fleetwood Mac
and Led Zeppelin
. A number of these moved into mainstream rock music and as a result British blues helped to form many of the sub-genres of rock. Since then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest in the genre.
, Liverpool
, Newcastle on Tyne and Belfast
, and through a trickle of (illegal) imports. Blues music was relatively well known to British Jazz musicians and fans, particularly in the works of figures like female singers Ma Rainey
and Bessie Smith
and the blues influenced Boogie Woogie of Jelly Roll Morton
and Fats Waller
. From 1955 major British record labels HMV
and EMI
, the latter, particularly through their subsidiary Decca Records
, began to distribute American jazz and increasingly blues records to what was an emerging market. Many encountered blues for the first time through the skiffle
craze of the second half of the 1950s, particularly the songs of Leadbelly
covered by acts like Lonnie Donegan
. As skiffle began to decline in the late 1950s, and British Rock and Roll
began to dominate the charts, a number of skiffle musicians moved towards playing purely blues music.
Among these were guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies
, who ran the London Skiffle Club at the Roundhouse public house in London
’s Soho
and guitarist Alexis Korner
, both of whom worked for jazz band leader Chris Barber
, playing in the R&B segment he introduced to his show. The club served as a focal point for British skiffle acts and Barber was responsible for bringing over American folk and blues performers, who found they were much better known and paid in Europe than America. The first major artist was Big Bill Broonzy
, who visited England in the mid-1950s, but who, rather than his electric Chicago blues
, played a folk blues set to fit in with British expectations of American blues as a form of folk music. In 1957 Davies and Korner decided that their central interest was the blues and closed the skiffle club, reopening a month later as The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. To this point British blues was acoustically played emulating Delta blues and country blues styles and often part of the emerging second British folk revival. Critical in changing this was the visit of Muddy Waters
in 1958, who initially shocked British audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but who was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Davies and Korner, having already split with Barber, now plugged in and began to play high powered electric blues that became the model for the sub-genre, forming the band Blues Incorporated
.
Blues Incorporated became something of a clearing house for British blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s, with many joining, or sitting in on sessions. These included future Rolling Stones, Keith Richards
, Mick Jagger
, Charlie Watts
and Brian Jones
; as well as Cream
founders Jack Bruce
and Ginger Baker
; beside Graham Bond
and Long John Baldry
. Blues Incorporated were given a residency at the Marquee Club
and it was from there that in 1962 they took the name of the first British Blues album, R&B from the Marquee
for Decca, but split before its release. The culmination of this first movement of blues came with John Mayall
, who moved to London in the early 1960s, eventually forming the Bluesbreakers
, whose members at various times included, Jack Bruce
, Aynsley Dunbar
and Mick Taylor
.
' blues artists like Muddy Waters
and Howlin' Wolf
, but also rock and roll
pioneers Chuck Berry
and Bo Diddley
. Most successful were the Rolling Stones, who abandoned blues purism before their line-up solidified and they produced their first eponymously titled album
in 1964, which largely consisted of rhythm and blues standards. Following in the wake of the Beatles' national and then international success, the Rolling Stones soon established themselves as the second most popular UK band and joined the British Invasion of the American record charts as leaders of a second wave of R&B orientated bands. In addition to Chicago blues numbers, the Rolling Stones also covered songs by Chuck Berry and Bobby and Shirley Womack
, with the latter's "It's All Over Now
", giving them their first UK number one in 1964. Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music, as in their version of "Little Red Rooster
" went to number 1 on the UK singles chart in December 1964.
Other London-based bands included the Yardbirds (who would number their ranks three key guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page), the Kinks (with the pioneer songwriter Ray Davies
and rock-guitarist Dave Davies
) and, Manfred Mann (considered to have one of the most authentic sounding vocalists in the scene in Paul Jones
) and the Pretty Things
, beside the more jazz-influenced acts like the Graham Bond Organisation, Georgie Fame
and Zoot Money
. Bands to emerge from other major British cities included The Animals
from Newcastle
(with the keyboards of Alan Price
and vocals of Eric Burdon
), The Moody Blues
and Spencer Davis Group
from Birmingham
(the latter largely a vehicle for the young Steve Winwood
), and Them
from Belfast (with their vocalist Van Morrison
). None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, often relying on a variety of sources, including Brill Building
and girl group songs for their hit singles, but it remained at the core of their early albums.
The British Mod subculture was musically centred on rhythm and blues and later soul music, performed by artists that were not available in small London clubs around which the scene was based. As a result a number of mod bands emerged to fill this gap. These included The Small Faces
, The Creation
, The Action
and most successfully The Who
. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as producing "maximum rhythm and blues", but by about 1966 they moved from attempting to emulate American R&B to producing songs that reflected the Mod lifestyle. Many of these bands were able to enjoy cult and then national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American market. Only the Who managed, after some difficulty, to produce a significant US following, particularly after their appearances at the Monterey Pop Festival
(1967) and Woodstock (1969).
Because of the very different circumstances from which they came, and in which they played, the rhythm and blues these bands produced was very different in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. They have been criticised for exploiting the massive catalogue of African American music, but it has also been noted that they both popularised that music, bringing it to British, world and in some cases American audiences, and helping to build the reputation of existing and past rhythm and blues artists. Most of these bands rapidly moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music, often leaving their R&B roots behind, but enabling several to enjoy sustained careers that were not open to most of the more pop-oriented beat groups of the first wave of the invasion, who (with the major exception of the Beatles) were unable to write their own material or adapt to changes in the musical climate.
, who later set up the Blue Horizon
record label
, it was notable for its driving rhythms and Clapton's rapid blues licks with a full distorted sound derived from a Gibson Les Paul
and a Marshall
amp. Clapton stated, "I spent most of my teens and early twenties studying the blues - the geography of it and the chronology of it, as well as how to play it". This album became something of a classic combination for British blues (and later rock) guitarists, and also made clear the primacy of the guitar, seen as a distinctive characteristic of the sub-genre. Peter Green
started what is called "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after his departure to form Cream. In 1967, after one record with the Bluesbreakers, Green, with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood
and John McVie
, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac
, produced by Mike Vernon on the Blue Horizon label. One key factor in developing the popularity of the music in the UK and across Europe in the early 1960s was the success of the American Folk Blues Festival
tours, organised by German promoters Horst Lippmann
and Fritz Rau.
The rise of electric blues, and its eventual mainstream success, meant that British acoustic blues was completely overshadowed. In the early 1960s, folk
guitar pioneers Bert Jansch
, John Renbourn
and particularly Davy Graham (who played and recorded with Korner), played blues, folk and jazz, developing a distinctive guitar style known as folk baroque
. British acoustic blues continued to develop as part of the folk scene, with figures like Ian A. Anderson
and his Country Blues Band, and Al Jones
. Most British acoustic blues players could achieve little commercial success and, with a few exceptions, found it difficult to gain any recognition for their "imitations" of the blues in the US.
In contrast, the next wave of bands, formed from about 1967, like Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After
and Free
, pursued a different route, retaining blues standards in their repertoire and producing original material that often shied away from obvious pop influences, placing an emphasis on individual virtuosity. The result has been characterised as blues-rock
and arguably marked the beginnings of a separation of pop and rock music that was to be a feature of the record industry for several decades.
Fleetwood Mac are often considered to have produced some of the finest work in the sub-genre, with inventive interpretations of Chicago Blues. They were also the most commercially successful group, with their eponymous début album reaching the UK top 5 in early 1968 and as the instrumental "Albatross" reached number one in the single charts in early 1969. This was, as Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz put it, "The commercial apex of the British blues Boom". A rapid decline followed, as surviving bands and musicians tended to move into other expanding areas of rock music. Some, like Korner and Mayall, continued to play a "pure" form of the blues, but largely outside of mainstream notice. The structure of clubs, venues and festivals that had grown up in the early 1950s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.
, and Freddie King
continuing to be well received in the UK and an active home scene led by figures including Dave Kelly
and his sister Jo Ann Kelly
, who helped keep the acoustic blues alive on the British folk circuit. Dave Kelly was also a founder of The Blues Band
with former Manfred Mann members Paul Jones
and Tom McGuinness, Hughie Flint
and Gary Fletcher
. The Blues Band was credited with kicking off a second blues boom in Britain, which by the 90s led to festivals all around the country, including The Swanage Blues Festival, The Burnley National Blues Festival, The Gloucester Blues and Heritage Festival and The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival at Colne. The twenty-first century has seen an upsurge in interest in the blues in Britain that can be seen in the success of previously unknown acts like Seasick Steve
, in the return to the blues by major figures who began in the first boom, including Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, Chris Rea
and Eric Clapton, as well as the arrival of younger artists like Matt Schofield
and Aynsley Lister
.
, progressive rock
. The pursuit of this line of development from the late 1960s by the next generation of blues based rock bands, including Led Zeppelin
, Deep Purple
and Black Sabbath
, would lead to the development of hard rock
and ultimately heavy metal
. Perhaps the most important contribution of British blues was the surprising re-exportation of American blues back to America, where, in the wake of the success of bands like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, white audiences began to look again at black blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf
and John Lee Hooker
, who suddenly began to appeal to middle class white Americans. The result was a re-evaluation of the blues in America which enabled white Americans much more easily to become blues musicians, opening the door to Southern rock
and the development of Texas blues
musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan
.
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
that originated in the late 1950s and which reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when 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 Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
. A number of these moved into mainstream rock music and as a result British blues helped to form many of the sub-genres of rock. Since then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest in the genre.
Origins
American blues became known in Britain from the 1930s onwards through a number of routes, including records brought to Britain, particularly by African-American GIs stationed there in the Second World War and Cold War, merchant seamen visiting ports such as LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, Newcastle on Tyne and Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, and through a trickle of (illegal) imports. Blues music was relatively well known to British Jazz musicians and fans, particularly in the works of figures like female singers Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....
and Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
and the blues influenced Boogie Woogie of Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
and Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
. From 1955 major British record labels HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
and EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, the latter, particularly through their subsidiary Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, began to distribute American jazz and increasingly blues records to what was an emerging market. Many encountered blues for the first time through the skiffle
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
craze of the second half of the 1950s, particularly the songs of Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
covered by acts like Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
. As skiffle began to decline in the late 1950s, and British Rock and Roll
British rock
British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by The Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the...
began to dominate the charts, a number of skiffle musicians moved towards playing purely blues music.
Among these were guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies was one of the first British blues harmonica players and blues musician.-Biography:Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary...
, who ran the London Skiffle Club at the Roundhouse public house in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
’s Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
and guitarist Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...
, both of whom worked for jazz band leader Chris Barber
Chris Barber
Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber is best known as a jazz 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 vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with...
, playing in the R&B segment he introduced to his show. The club served as a focal point for British skiffle acts and Barber was responsible for bringing over American folk and blues performers, who found they were much better known and paid in Europe than America. The first major artist was Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...
, who visited England in the mid-1950s, but who, rather than his electric Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
, played a folk blues set to fit in with British expectations of American blues as a form of folk music. In 1957 Davies and Korner decided that their central interest was the blues and closed the skiffle club, reopening a month later as The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. To this point British blues was acoustically played emulating Delta blues and country blues styles and often part of the emerging second British folk revival. Critical in changing this was the visit of Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
in 1958, who initially shocked British audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but who was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Davies and Korner, having already split with Barber, now plugged in and began to play high powered electric blues that became the model for the sub-genre, forming the band Blues Incorporated
Blues Incorporated
Blues Incorporated were a British R&B band in the early 1960s, led by Alexis Korner and featuring at various times Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Terry Cox, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, Ronnie Jones, Danny Thompson, Graham Bond, Cyril Davies, Malcolm Cecil and Dick Heckstall-Smith.-History:Korner ...
.
Blues Incorporated became something of a clearing house for British blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s, with many joining, or sitting in on sessions. These included future Rolling Stones, Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
, Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, Charlie Watts
Charlie Watts
Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...
and Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
; as well as Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
founders Jack Bruce
Jack Bruce
John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...
and Ginger Baker
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...
; beside Graham Bond
Graham Bond
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....
and Long John Baldry
Long John Baldry
John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...
. Blues Incorporated were given a residency at the Marquee Club
Marquee Club
The Marquee was a music club first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts.It was also the location of the first ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962....
and it was from there that in 1962 they took the name of the first British Blues album, R&B from the Marquee
R&B from the Marquee
R&B from the Marquee was 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...
for Decca, but split before its release. The culmination of this first movement of blues came with John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
, who moved to London in the early 1960s, eventually forming the Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are a pioneering English blues band, led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall, OBE. Mayall used the band name between 1963 and 1967, but then dropped it for some fifteen years. However, in 1982 a 'Return of the Bluesbreakers' was announced and...
, whose members at various times included, Jack Bruce
Jack Bruce
John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...
, Aynsley Dunbar
Aynsley Dunbar
Aynsley Thomas Dunbar is an English drummer. He has worked with some of the top names in rock, including Eric Burdon, John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, Jefferson Starship, Jeff Beck, David Bowie, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar, UFO, and Journey...
and Mick Taylor
Mick Taylor
Michael Kevin "Mick" Taylor is an English musician, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and The Rolling Stones...
.
British rhythm and blues
While some bands focused on blues artists, particularly those of Chicago electric blues, others adopted a wider interest in rhythm and blues, including the work of Chess RecordsChess Records
Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....
' blues artists like Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
and Howlin' Wolf
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....
, but also rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
pioneers Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
and Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
. Most successful were the Rolling Stones, who abandoned blues purism before their line-up solidified and they produced their first eponymously titled album
The Rolling Stones (album)
-Personnel:The Rolling Stones*Mick Jagger – lead and backing vocals, harmonica, percussion*Keith Richards – guitar, backing vocals*Brian Jones – guitar, harmonica, percussion, backing vocals*Charlie Watts – drums, percussion...
in 1964, which largely consisted of rhythm and blues standards. Following in the wake of the Beatles' national and then international success, the Rolling Stones soon established themselves as the second most popular UK band and joined the British Invasion of the American record charts as leaders of a second wave of R&B orientated bands. In addition to Chicago blues numbers, the Rolling Stones also covered songs by Chuck Berry and Bobby and Shirley Womack
Bobby Womack
Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40...
, with the latter's "It's All Over Now
It's All Over Now
"It's All Over Now" was written by Bobby Womack and Shirley Womack. It was first released by The Valentinos featuring Bobby Womack. The Valentinos version entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 27, 1964, where it stayed on the chart for two weeks, peaking at No. 94...
", giving them their first UK number one in 1964. Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music, as in their version of "Little Red Rooster
Little Red Rooster
"Little Red Rooster" is a song that is a classic of the blues. Howlin' Wolf recorded "The Red Rooster" in 1961, a song credited to blues arranger and songwriter Willie Dixon, although earlier songs have been cited as inspiration...
" went to number 1 on the UK singles chart in December 1964.
Other London-based bands included the Yardbirds (who would number their ranks three key guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page), the Kinks (with the pioneer songwriter Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
and rock-guitarist Dave Davies
Dave Davies
David Russell Gordon "Dave" Davies is an English rock musician best known for his role as lead guitarist and vocalist for the English rock band The Kinks....
) and, Manfred Mann (considered to have one of the most authentic sounding vocalists in the scene in Paul Jones
Paul Jones (singer)
Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...
) and the Pretty Things
Pretty Things
The Pretty Things are an English rock and roll band from London, who originally formed in 1963. They took their name from Bo Diddley's 1955 song "Pretty Thing" and, in their early days, were dubbed by the British press the "uglier cousins of the Rolling Stones". Their most commercially successful...
, beside the more jazz-influenced acts like the Graham Bond Organisation, Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player. The one-time rock and roll tour musician, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still a popular performer, often working with contemporaries such as Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.-Early life:Fame took piano lessons from the...
and Zoot Money
Zoot Money
George Bruno Money, known as Zoot Money is a British vocalist, keyboardist and bandleader best known for his playing of the Hammond organ and association with his Big Roll Band...
. Bands to emerge from other major British cities included The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
from Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
(with the keyboards of Alan Price
Alan Price
Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
and vocals of Eric Burdon
Eric Burdon
Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...
), The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
and Spencer Davis Group
Spencer Davis Group
The Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England, formed by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother Muff Winwood...
from Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
(the latter largely a vehicle for the young Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
), and Them
Them (band)
Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
from Belfast (with their vocalist Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
). None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, often relying on a variety of sources, including Brill Building
Brill Building
The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood...
and girl group songs for their hit singles, but it remained at the core of their early albums.
The British Mod subculture was musically centred on rhythm and blues and later soul music, performed by artists that were not available in small London clubs around which the scene was based. As a result a number of mod bands emerged to fill this gap. These included The Small Faces
The Small Faces
The Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's...
, The Creation
The Creation (band)
The Creation were an English rock band, formed in 1966. The most popular Creation song was "Painter Man", which made the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart in late 1966, and reached #8 in the German chart in April 1967. It was later covered by Boney M in 1979, and reached the #10 position in the UK...
, The Action
The Action
The Action were an English band of the 1960s. They were part of the mod subculture, and played soul music-influenced pop music.-Career:The band were formed as The Boys in August 1963, in Kentish Town, North West London. After Peter Watson joined them as an additional guitarist in 1965, they changed...
and most successfully The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
. The Who's early promotional material tagged them as producing "maximum rhythm and blues", but by about 1966 they moved from attempting to emulate American R&B to producing songs that reflected the Mod lifestyle. Many of these bands were able to enjoy cult and then national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American market. Only the Who managed, after some difficulty, to produce a significant US following, particularly after their appearances at the Monterey Pop Festival
Monterey Pop Festival
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
(1967) and Woodstock (1969).
Because of the very different circumstances from which they came, and in which they played, the rhythm and blues these bands produced was very different in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. They have been criticised for exploiting the massive catalogue of African American music, but it has also been noted that they both popularised that music, bringing it to British, world and in some cases American audiences, and helping to build the reputation of existing and past rhythm and blues artists. Most of these bands rapidly moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music, often leaving their R&B roots behind, but enabling several to enjoy sustained careers that were not open to most of the more pop-oriented beat groups of the first wave of the invasion, who (with the major exception of the Beatles) were unable to write their own material or adapt to changes in the musical climate.
The British blues boom
The blues boom overlapped, both chronologically and in terms of personnel, with the earlier, wider rhythm and blues phase, which had begun to peter out in the mid-1960s leaving a nucleus of instrumentalists with a wide knowledge of blues forms and techniques, which they would carry into the pursuit of more purist blues interests. Blues Incorporated and Mayall's Bluesbreakers were well known in the London Jazz and emerging R&B circuits, but the Bluesbreakers began to gain some national and international attention, particularly after the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings. Produced by Mike VernonMike Vernon (producer)
Mike Vernon is an English record producer. He produced albums for British blues artists and groups during the late 1960s, working with the Bluesbreakers, David Bowie, Duster Bennett, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, John Mayall, Christine McVie and...
, who later set up the Blue Horizon
Blue Horizon
Blue Horizon was a British blues record label founded by Mike Vernon in the mid 1960s.Its roots lay in Vernon's mail order label Purdah Records, which released just four 7" singles; including "Flapjacks" by Stone's Masonry ; and another by John Mayall and Eric Clapton "Bernard Jenkins", and...
record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, it was notable for its driving rhythms and Clapton's rapid blues licks with a full distorted sound derived from a Gibson Les Paul
Gibson Les Paul
The Gibson Les Paul was the result of a design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation and the late jazz guitarist and electronics inventor Les Paul. In 1950, with the introduction of the Fender Telecaster to the musical market, electric guitars became a public craze. In reaction, Gibson...
and a Marshall
Marshall Amplification
Marshall Amplification is a British company, founded by drummer Jim Marshall, that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, brands personal headphones/earphones , and, after acquiring Natal Drums, drums and bongos. Marshall amplifiers, and specifically their guitar amplifiers, are among the most...
amp. Clapton stated, "I spent most of my teens and early twenties studying the blues - the geography of it and the chronology of it, as well as how to play it". This album became something of a classic combination for British blues (and later rock) guitarists, and also made clear the primacy of the guitar, seen as a distinctive characteristic of the sub-genre. Peter Green
Peter Green (musician)
Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...
started what is called "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after his departure to form Cream. In 1967, after one record with the Bluesbreakers, Green, with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood
Mick Fleetwood
Michael John Kells "Mick" Fleetwood is a British musician and actor best known for his role as the drummer and namesake of the blues/rock and roll band Fleetwood Mac. His surname, combined with that of John McVie, was the inspiration for the name of the originally Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac...
and John McVie
John McVie
John Graham McVie is a British bass guitarist best known as a member of the rock group Fleetwood Mac. His surname, combined with that of Mick Fleetwood, was the inspiration for the band's name...
, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
, produced by Mike Vernon on the Blue Horizon label. One key factor in developing the popularity of the music in the UK and across Europe in the early 1960s was the success of the American Folk Blues Festival
American Folk Blues Festival
The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe beginning in 1962.German jazz publicist Joachim-Ernst Berendt first had the idea of bringing original African-American blues performers to Europe. Jazz had become very popular, and rock and roll was just gaining a foothold,...
tours, organised by German promoters Horst Lippmann
Horst Lippmann
Horst Lippmann was a German jazz musician, concert promoter, writer and television director, best known as promoter of the influential American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe during and after the 1960s.-Life:The son of a hotelier, Lippmann played drums in the illegal Frankfurter Hot Club in...
and Fritz Rau.
The rise of electric blues, and its eventual mainstream success, meant that British acoustic blues was completely overshadowed. In the early 1960s, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
guitar pioneers Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
, John Renbourn
John Renbourn
John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...
and particularly Davy Graham (who played and recorded with Korner), played blues, folk and jazz, developing a distinctive guitar style known as folk baroque
Folk baroque
Folk baroque or baroque guitar is the name given to a distinctive and influential guitar fingerstyle developed in Britain in the 1960s, which combined elements of American folk, blues, jazz and ragtime with British traditional music to produce a new and elaborate form of accompaniment...
. British acoustic blues continued to develop as part of the folk scene, with figures like Ian A. Anderson
Ian A. Anderson
Ian A. Anderson is an English magazine editor, folk musician and broadcaster.-Country blues and The Village Thing:...
and his Country Blues Band, and Al Jones
Al Jones
Alun Ashworth-Jones , known as Al Jones, was an influential English folk and blues songwriter, guitarist and singer, noted for his distinctive and original folk-rock guitar style and his often darkly humorous lyrics.-Early career:He first came to prominence in the Bristol folk scene in the...
. Most British acoustic blues players could achieve little commercial success and, with a few exceptions, found it difficult to gain any recognition for their "imitations" of the blues in the US.
In contrast, the next wave of bands, formed from about 1967, like Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After
Ten Years After
Ten Years After is an English blues-rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, Ten Years After scored eight Top 40 albums on the UK Albums Chart...
and Free
Free (band)
Free were an English rock band, formed in London in 1968, best known for their 1970 signature song "All Right Now". They disbanded in 1973 and lead singer Paul Rodgers went on to become a frontman of the band Bad Company along with Simon Kirke on drums; lead guitarist Paul Kossoff died from a...
, pursued a different route, retaining blues standards in their repertoire and producing original material that often shied away from obvious pop influences, placing an emphasis on individual virtuosity. The result has been characterised as blues-rock
Blues-rock
Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
and arguably marked the beginnings of a separation of pop and rock music that was to be a feature of the record industry for several decades.
Fleetwood Mac are often considered to have produced some of the finest work in the sub-genre, with inventive interpretations of Chicago Blues. They were also the most commercially successful group, with their eponymous début album reaching the UK top 5 in early 1968 and as the instrumental "Albatross" reached number one in the single charts in early 1969. This was, as Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz put it, "The commercial apex of the British blues Boom". A rapid decline followed, as surviving bands and musicians tended to move into other expanding areas of rock music. Some, like Korner and Mayall, continued to play a "pure" form of the blues, but largely outside of mainstream notice. The structure of clubs, venues and festivals that had grown up in the early 1950s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.
Survival and resurgence
Although overshadowed by the growth of rock music the blues did not disappear in Britain, with American bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Eddie TaylorEddie Taylor
Eddie Taylor was an American electric blues guitarist and singer.-Biography:Born Edward Taylor in Benoit, Mississippi, United States, as a boy Taylor taught himself to play the guitar. He spent his early years playing at venues around Leland, Mississippi, where he taught his friend Jimmy Reed to...
, and Freddie King
Freddie King
Freddie King , thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert...
continuing to be well received in the UK and an active home scene led by figures including Dave Kelly
Dave Kelly (musician)
David 'Dave' Kelly , is a British bluessinger, guitarist and composer, who has been active on the British blues music scene since the 1960s...
and his sister Jo Ann Kelly
Jo Ann Kelly
Jo Ann Kelly was an English blues singer and guitarist. "To many American performers", an obituarist wrote, "Jo Ann Kelly was the only British singer to earn their respect for her development of what they would be justified in thinking as 'their' genre".-Life and career:Kelly was born in...
, who helped keep the acoustic blues alive on the British folk circuit. Dave Kelly was also a founder of The Blues Band
The Blues Band
The Blues Band is a British blues band formed in 1979 by Paul Jones, former lead vocalist and harmonica player with Manfred Mann, and vocalist/slide guitarist Dave Kelly, who had previously played with the John Dummer Blues Band, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker...
with former Manfred Mann members Paul Jones
Paul Jones (singer)
Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...
and Tom McGuinness, Hughie Flint
Hughie Flint
Hughie Flint , is an English drummer, best known for his stint in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, playing drums on the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album, released in 1966, for his group McGuinness Flint in the early 70s and for his subsequent association with The Blues Band.Flint played in...
and Gary Fletcher
Gary Fletcher (musician)
Gary Fletcher is a British blues musician, best known for playing bass guitar with The Blues Band, he is also a guitarist and songwriter.-Early life:...
. The Blues Band was credited with kicking off a second blues boom in Britain, which by the 90s led to festivals all around the country, including The Swanage Blues Festival, The Burnley National Blues Festival, The Gloucester Blues and Heritage Festival and The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival at Colne. The twenty-first century has seen an upsurge in interest in the blues in Britain that can be seen in the success of previously unknown acts like Seasick Steve
Seasick Steve
Steven Gene Wold, commonly known as Seasick Steve, is an American blues musician. He plays guitars, and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work.-Childhood and early life:...
, in the return to the blues by major figures who began in the first boom, including Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, Chris Rea
Chris Rea
Chris Rea is an English singer-songwriter, recognisable for his distinctive, husky voice and slide guitar playing. The British Hit Singles & Albums stated that Rea was "one of the most popular UK singer-songwriters of the late 1980s. He was already a major European star by the time he finally...
and Eric Clapton, as well as the arrival of younger artists like Matt Schofield
Matt Schofield
Matt Schofield is an English blues guitarist and singer, whose music blends blues with rock and funky jazz rhythms....
and Aynsley Lister
Aynsley Lister
Aynsley Lister is an English blues-rock guitarist/singer and songwriter.-Biography:Lister started playing guitar at 8 and played his first concert at 13. He had learned guitar by playing along to his father’s old 45s of Freddie King, John Mayall and Eric Clapton...
.
Impact
Beside giving a start to many important blues, pop and rock musicians, in spawning blues-rock it also ultimately gave rise to a host of sub-genres of rock, including particularly psychedelic rockPsychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
. The pursuit of this line of development from the late 1960s by the next generation of blues based rock bands, including Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
and Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, would lead to the development of hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and ultimately heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. Perhaps the most important contribution of British blues was the surprising re-exportation of American blues back to America, where, in the wake of the success of bands like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, white audiences began to look again at black blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....
and John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, who suddenly began to appeal to middle class white Americans. The result was a re-evaluation of the blues in America which enabled white Americans much more easily to become blues musicians, opening the door to Southern rock
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...
and the development of Texas blues
Texas blues
Texas blues is a subgenre of blues. It has had various style variations but typically has been played with more swing than other blues styles....
musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
.