British blues
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, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin.
[2] 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.
[4] 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.
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.
[4] The culmination of this first movement of blues[6] 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, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor.
[9] Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music, as in their version of "Little Red Rooster", which went to number 1 on the UK singles chart in December 1964.
[10] Other London-based bands included the Yardbirds (whose ranks included three key guitarists in Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page), The Kinks (with pioneer songwriter Ray Davies and rock-guitarist Dave Davies),[8] 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.
[7] 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).
[7] 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.
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.
[23] In contrast, the next wave of bands, formed from about 1967, like Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, 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.
[27] Free, with the guitar talents of Paul Kossoff, particularly from their self titled second album (1969), produced a stripped down form of blues that would be highly influential on hard rock and later heavy metal.
Their early work included blues standards, but by the time of their second album Paranoid (1970), they had added elements of modality and the occult that would largely define modern heavy metal.
[37] Although overshadowed by the growth of rock music the blues did not disappear in Britain, with American bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker, Eddie Taylor, 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.
[38] 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.
[38] 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 including Seasick Steve,[39] in the return to the blues by major figures who began in the first boom, including Peter Green,[40] Mick Fleetwood,[41] Chris Rea[42] and Eric Clapton,[43] as well as the arrival of new artists such as Dani Wilde, Matt Schofield,[44] Aynsley Lister and most recently in 2017 the Starlite Campbell Band.
