Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, ‘R&B from the Marquee’, 1962. Reckoned to be the first UK rock album. Alexis and Cyril Davies had been playing blues since the 1950s, setting up the Ealing Blues Club where nippers like Mick n Keef learned their craft. Alexis had a revolving-door policy, the music more important than a ‘career’ and making it, maaan. Thus, in its time, the band had Charlie Watts, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Art Wood (brother of Ronnie), Dick Heckstall-Smith, Long John Baldry (who gave Elton John his first break) and a host of others pass through before going off and creating the Sixties rock scene.
The band had a regular residency at the Marquee club, influencing and entertaining hundreds of kids who ran with the exciting ‘new’ sound of black American R&B. This LP was actually recorded at Decca studios and consisted of their stage set. It’s a swinging, tight collection, even if it sometimes lacks the bite vocally of the originals they covered, such as Muddy Waters’ ‘I Wanna Put a Tiger in Your Tank’. Musically, it’s on the money: the band could all play. Pianos pound, drums shuffle and rimshot, bass walks nimbly, harp wails, guitar breaks sting and ripple. It sounds authentic. When you hear, say, Pat Boone’s cover of ‘Tutti Frutti’, you hear how badly songs can be killed by skinny white guys. Blues Incorporated venerated and respected the music they played.
The Butterfly Effect. Without Korner and Davies playing for the love of the music then the word might not have spread, guitars would have lain untouched, and the likes of Freddie & the Dreamers would be the only Sound of the Sixties, not the Rolling Stones et al.
Alexis Korner
Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, ‘R&B from the Marquee’, 1962. Reckoned to be the first UK rock album. Alexis and Cyril Davies had been playing blues since the 1950s, setting up the Ealing Blues Club where nippers like Mick n Keef learned their craft. Alexis had a revolving-door policy, the music more important than a ‘career’ and making it, maaan. Thus, in its time, the band had Charlie Watts, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Art Wood (brother of Ronnie), Dick Heckstall-Smith, Long John Baldry (who gave Elton John his first break) and a host of others pass through before going off and creating the Sixties rock scene.
The band had a regular residency at the Marquee club, influencing and entertaining hundreds of kids who ran with the exciting ‘new’ sound of black American R&B. This LP was actually recorded at Decca studios and consisted of their stage set. It’s a swinging, tight collection, even if it sometimes lacks the bite vocally of the originals they covered, such as Muddy Waters’ ‘I Wanna Put a Tiger in Your Tank’. Musically, it’s on the money: the band could all play. Pianos pound, drums shuffle and rimshot, bass walks nimbly, harp wails, guitar breaks sting and ripple. It sounds authentic. When you hear, say, Pat Boone’s cover of ‘Tutti Frutti’, you hear how badly songs can be killed by skinny white guys. Blues Incorporated venerated and respected the music they played.
The Butterfly Effect. Without Korner and Davies playing for the love of the music then the word might not have spread, guitars would have lain untouched, and the likes of Freddie & the Dreamers would be the only Sound of the Sixties, not the Rolling Stones et al.