British rhythm and blues
Encyclopedia
British rhythm and blues (or R&B) developed as a major musical movement in the early 1960s in London
and other urban centres in the UK as predominately young white male musicians attempted to emulate the style and recordings of African American rhythm and blues
artists. Among the most successful bands in the genre were The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds
, Manfred Mann
, The Animals
, the Spencer Davis Group
and Them
, many of whom dominated the UK and US charts from 1964, in the wake of the Merseybeat
craze, becoming central to the Mod subculture in the UK and a second wave of British Invasion
acts in the US. Several of the bands and their members went on to become leading rock music
performers of the late 1960s and early 1970s, helping to create psychedelic
, progressive
and hard rock
and making rhythm and blues a key component of that music. In the late 1970s British R&B enjoyed a revival through the pub rock circuit, New Wave Music
and Mod revival
and has enjoyed a resurgence of interest since the late 1980s.
bands, on the one hand, who were influenced by rock and roll
and rockabilly
and, on the other, from "purist" British blues
, which particularly emulated Chicago
electric blues
artists, although there was considerable crossover between all three sets of musicians. Merseybeat
bands like the Beatles, or from the parallel beat scene in Manchester
, were influenced by a variety of American forms of music, including rockabilly
, girl group
s and the early Motown sound, helping them to produce commercial orientated form of music that began to dominate the British charts from 1963. However many bands, particularly in the developing London club scene, were mainly concerned to emulate black rhythm and blues performers, including the work of Chess Records
' blues artists like Muddy Waters
and Howlin' Wolf
, but also wider rhythm and blues singer and rock and roll pioneers like Chuck Berry
and Bo Diddley
resulting in a "rawer" or "grittier" sound.
British rhythm and blues differed in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. British rhythm and blues singers were often criticised for their emulation of rhythm and blues vocal styles, with shouts, glottal stops, moans and cries. However, vocalists such as Van Morrison
, Mick Jagger
, Eric Burdon
and Steve Winwood
did not attempt to emulate a particular singer and were seen my some critics as able to sing the blues convincingly and with some power. In cover versions riffs were often simplified or used less frequently. The object of the music was often whipping up energy rather than producing musical finesse.
Many groups were based around guitar and drums and as a result arrangements tended to be guitar-oriented and at higher tempos. Amplification of guitars to the highest levels of their underpowered amplifiers created the over-driven guitar sound that would become characteristic of rock music.
Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden noted that after the split of Blues Incorporated at the end of 1962 four main strands could be discerned in British Rhythm and Blues. Cyril Davies left to attempt to recreate the Chicago electric blues of Muddy Waters. The style would be the major influence on the later emergence of the blues boom particularly through the work of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Alexis Korner continued with Blues Incorporated, bringing in jazz saxophonist Graham Bond
and developing a more jazz orientated sound. This strand would be taken up by acts including the Graham Bond Organisation, Manfred Mann
and Zoot Money
. The Rolling Stones focused on rocking guitar music based on the work of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. A unique form was pursued by Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, who as the resident band at the Flamingo
club on Wardour Steet, unusual in having a predominately black audience of American GIs and locals, also utilised jazz, but mixed R&B with elements of Caribbean music, including Ska
and bluebeat.
, 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 London
, Liverpool
, Newcastle on Tyne and Belfast
, and in a trickle of (illegal) imports. 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 the emerging market. Outside of recordings, occasional radio broadcasts were one of the few ways that British people could become familiar with the blues. A one-off broadcast by Josh White
while he was visiting Britain in 1951 was so popular that he was asked to perform for a series of programmes for the BBC, eventually titled The Glory Road and folk song collector Alan Lomax
, then resident in London, produced a series of three programmes under the title The Art of the Negro, of last of which, "Blues in the Mississippi Night" featured folk blues recordings by artists including Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker. The next year the Max Jones hosted programme Jazz Club included a recital of "Town and Country Blues", which played music by a wide range of blues artists.
to produce trad jazz
. This music incorporated elements of the blues and occasional blues-influenced singles reaching the British Charts, including Humphrey Lyttleton's self-penned "Bad Penny Blues
" (1956), the first jazz record to reach the British top twenty. British trad jazz
band-leader Chris Barber
brought over American folk and blues performers who found they were much better known and paid in Europe than America, including Big Bill Broonzy
, Brownie McGhee
, Sonny Terry
and Lonnie Johnson
.
in 1952 on a bill opened by a group led by the young Tony Donegan
, who later took Johnson's forename as his own. Donegan became the key figure in the development of the British skiffle "craze", beginning in Ken Colyer
's Jazzmen by playing a variety of American folk and blues songs, particularly those derived from the recordings of Huddie Leadbetter, during intervals to the accompaniment of guitar, washboard
and tea-chest bass in a lively style that emulated American jug bands. After Colyer left in 1954 to form a new outfit the band became Chris Barber's Jazz Band, and members of the band recorded as The Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group. They released their high-tempo version of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line
" in 1956 and it became a major hit, spending eight months in the Top 20, peaking at number six (and number eight in the U.S.). It was the first début record to go gold in Britain, selling over a million copies worldwide. It has been estimated that in the late 1950s there were 30-50,000 skiffle groups in Britain. Sales of guitars grew rapidly and groups performed on improvised bass and percussion in church halls, cafes and the flourishing coffee bars of Soho
, London. A large number of British rhythm and blues musicians began their careers playing skiffle, including Van Morrison
, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger
and Roger Daltrey
. The fashion created a demand for opportunities to play versions of American folk, blues and jazz music.
. Skiffle clubs included the ‘Ballad and Blues’ club in a pub
in Soho
, co-founded by Ewan MacColl
. As the craze subsided from the mid 1950s many of these clubs began to shift towards the performance of English traditional folk material, partly as a reaction to the growth of American dominated pop and rock n’ roll music, often banning American music from performances. The more traditional American folk blues continued to provide 1960s British groups with material, particularly after the emergence of Bob Dylan
, and in 1964, for example, the song-catalogue of Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") provided The Animals
with "The House of the Rising Sun
", Manfred Mann with "John Hardy
" and The Four Pennies
with "Black Girl".
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. In 1957 Davies and Korner, deciding their central interest was blues, closed the skiffle club and reopened a month later as The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. The visit of Muddy Waters
in 1958 initially shocked British audiences with its amplified electric blues but he was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Where British blues had often emulated Delta blues
and country blues
in the emerging British folk revival
, Davies and Korner, having split with Barber, now began to play high powered electric blues, forming the band Blues Incorporated. Blues Incorporated became a clearing house for British rhythm and blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s. These included future members of the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds
, Manfred Mann
and The Kinks
; beside Graham Bond
and Long John Baldry
. As well as mentor to these figures and many others, including John Mayall
, Korner was also a historian, writer and record collector pivotal in the growth of the moment, and often referred to as "the father of British blues". Blues Incorporated were given a residency at the Marquee Club
, from which in 1962 they took the name of the first British blues album, R&B from the Marquee
(Decca), but Korner and Davies had split over the issue of including horn sections into the Blues Incorporated sound before its release. Korner continued with various line-ups for Blues Incorporated, while Davies went on to form his R&B All Stars.
, 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 1963 Melody Maker
declared London "The New Chicago!".
The scene soon began to spread out beyond London, particularly into East Anglia and the Midlands, with clubs in Norwich and Birmingham adopting the genre. Jazz bands also followed suit, with the Mike Cotton Jazz Band becoming the Mike Cotton Sound, Warwick's Tony and the Talons becoming the Original Roadrunners and Burton on Trent's Atlantix becoming Rhythm and Blues Incorporated.
The increasing appetite for rhythm and blues was reflected in the growing numbers of Afro-American artists visiting the country. From 1962 the American Folk Blues Festival
, organised by German promoters Horst Lippmann
and Fritz Rau, brought a variety of American blues stars including Waters, Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson
, and John Lee Hooker
to the country. In 1964 the American Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan arrived in the UK for a 11-date tour, including in its line-up Sister Rosetta Tharpe
, Blind Gary Davis, Sonny Terry
, Muddy Waters
and Otis Spann
. The original dates sold out rapidly and six more had to be added. Later that year the first of what was to become the annual National Jazz and Blues Festival
was held at Reading in Berkshire.
1964 was the year of most rapid expansion and the peak of the British R&B boom. It has been estimated that there were some 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 UK by Pye International Records
that year, peaked at number 42 in the singles chart and was covered by The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Animals and The Who
. On December 5, 1964 the Rolling Stones version of Willie Dixon
's "Little Red Rooster", based on Howlin' Wolf's 1961 version and recorded at Chess Records
in Chicago, topped the UK chart for one week. Many more Willie Dixon-penned songs would be covered by British artists.
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 oriented bands. In addition to Chicago blues numbers, the Rolling Stones also covered songs by Chuck Berry and Bobby and Shirley Womack
, the latter's, "It's All Over Now
", giving them their first UK number one in 1964. After their version of "Little Red Rooster" went to number one on the UK singles chart in 1964, the song-writing partnership between Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards
gradually began to dominate the band's output in the mid-1960s, giving them their breakthrough international hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
(1965), a song which borrowed phrases and rhythms from R&B standards, and would be covered by both Otis Redding
and Aretha Franklin
. Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music throughout their long career.
, the Pretty Things
and the Pink Floyd
.
from Newcastle, Them
from Belfast and the Spencer Davis Group
, The Moody Blues
and Chicken Shack
from Birmingham
. 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.
but the artists that performed the original music were not available in small London clubs around which the scene was based. British R&B bands like the Stones, Yardbirds and Kinks all had a following among mods but a large number of specifically mod bands also emerged to fill this gap. These included The Small Faces
, The Creation
, The Action
, The Smoke, John's Children
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).
's organ and saxophone playing and gruff vocals. Their rhythm section of Jack Bruce
and Ginger Baker
would go on to form Cream with Eric Clapton
in 1967. Manfred Mann had a much smoother sound and one of the most highly rated vocalists in the scene in Paul Jones
. They enjoyed their first success with covers of girl group songs "Do Wah Diddy Diddy
" (1964) and "Sha La La" (1964), the first of which reached number one in both the UK and the US, but largely stuck to rhythm and blues standards on their albums. Zoot Money, whose Big Roll Band mixed R&B, soul, rock and roll and jazz and was one of the most popular live acts of the era, made little impact in terms of record sales but is noted for its members, including guitarist Andy Summers
, pianist Dave Greenslade
, drummer Jon Hiseman
, bassist Tony Reeves
and saxophonist Clive Burrows. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
mixed jazz, ska
and bluebeat into his music and had three number one singles in the UK, beginning with "Yeh Yeh
" (1965).
, an American singer stationed in England with the Air Force who was invited to join what became the Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band
by guitarist Pete Gage in 1965 and enjoyed top 40 hit singles and two top 10 albums before the band split up in 1969. Another American GI, Herbie Goins
, sang with Blues Incorporated before leading his own band, the Nightimers. Jimmy James
, born in Jamaica, moved to London after two local number one hits with The Vagabonds in 1960 and built a strong reputation as a live act, releasing a live album and their debut The New Religion in 1966 and achieving moderate success with singles before the original Vagabonds broke up in 1970.
The most significant and successful visiting artist was Jimi Hendrix
who in early 1966, after years on the chitlin circuit as sideman for major R&B acts as well as playing in bands in New York, was invited to England to record as a solo artist by former Animals bassist Chas Chandler
. With Mitch Mitchell
on drums and Noel Redding
on bass, the band formed around him as The Jimi Hendrix Experience
became major stars in the UK, with three top ten hits in early 1967. it was followed later that year by the psychedelic album Are You Experienced?, which became a major hit in the US after Hendrix's triumphant return at the Monterey Pop Festival and made him one of the major figures of late 60s rock.
, Rod Stewart
and Elton John
. After the dissolution of Blues Incorporated in 1962 Long John Baldry joined the Cyril Davies
R&B All Stars, and after Davies' death in early 1964 took over leadership of the group, renaming it Long John Baldry and His Hoochie Coochie Men. The band featured Rod Stewart as a second vocalist, with whom Baldry formed short lived proto-supergroup
Steampacket
in 1965. Baldry moved on to front Bluesology
, which had originally been formed as an R&B band in 1962 by teenage keyboardist Reggie Dwight, later better known as Elton John. Baldry enjoyed his greatest success with pop ballads, beginning with "Let the Heartaches Begin" (1967), which reached number one in Britain, but, despite supporting the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he remained virtually unknown outside of the UK. After Steampacket dissolved in 1966, Rod Stewart joined blues-rock combo Shotgun Express
and then The Jeff Beck Group
, and when that broke up in 1969 he moved on to The Small Faces, which became The Faces, and also began to pursue his solo career, mixing R&B with rock and folk, to become one of the most successful British solo artists of the 1970s. Elton John, taking his first name from Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and his last from John Baldry, formed a partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin
in 1968 and after writing several hits for major pop artists embarked on a solo career that would be the most commercially successful of the early 1970s and one of the most sustained in pop music.
, who began to gain some national and international attention after the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings. Peter Green
started a "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after Clapton's departure to form Cream.
In 1967, after one record with the Bluesbreakers, Green, with the Bluesbreakers' rhythm section Mick Fleetwood
and John McVie
, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac
. Mike Vernon
, who had produced the "Beano" album set up the Blue Horizon
record label
and signed Fleetwood Mac and other emerging blues acts. Other major acts included Free
, Ten Years After
, and Duster Bennett
. Fleetwood Mac's eponymous début
album reached the UK top 5 in early 1968 and as the instrumental "Albatross" reached number one in the single charts in early 1969. Chicken Shack, formed at the peak of the boom in 1965 by Stan Webb
, were unusual in having a female vocalist and keyboard player in Christine Perfect
. They had a British hit with Etta James
' R&B classic "I'd Rather Go Blind
" in 1969, before Perfect left to join her husband John McVie
in Fleetwood Mac
, but remained largely focused on blues standards. The band then suffered a series of line-up changes and although managing a comeback on the club circuit they never achieved another mainstream breakthrough and split up in 1973. 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 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 late 1950s and early 1960s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.
. By 1970 British rhythm and blues had virtually ceased to exist as an active genre. Rhythm and blues bands began to find it very difficult to achieve serious album sales, even in the UK. Vinegar Joe
, formed in 1971 around the vocals of Elkie Brooks
and Robert Palmer and the instrumental talents of Pete Gage and Steve York, despite popular stage performances, broke up after only three albums with disappointing sales two years later.
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 album Stupidity
(1976), but failed to make any significant impact in the US.
A handful of pub rock acts managed to achieve mainstream success after the advent of punk rock
, often being re-categorised as New Wave music
, including Graham Parker and the Rumour, Nick Lowe
, Squeeze and Elvis Costello
. London-based R&B pub rock bands received a major boost when The Jam
kicked off the mod revival
in 1977 with their debut album In the City, which mixed R&B standards with originals modelled on The Who
's early singles. They confirmed their status as the leading mod revival band with their third album All Mod Cons
(1978), on which Paul Weller
's song-writing drew heavily on the British-focused narratives of the Kinks. Pub rock bands like Red Beans and Rice, The Little Roosters, The Inmates
, Nine Below Zero
and Eddie and the Hot Rods, all became major acts in the growing mod revival scene in London. Other bands grew up to feed the desire for mod music, often combining the music of 60s mod groups with elements of punk music, including The Lambrettas
, The Merton Parkas
, Squire, and Purple Hearts
. All of these acts managed to develop cult followings and some had pop hits, before the revival petered out in the early 80s. Weller broke up The Jam in 1982 and formed The Style Council
, who abandoned most of the elements of punk to adopt music much more based in R&B and early soul. Some major figures of the movement, including Robert Palmer and Steve Winwood, re-emerged as solo artists in the early 1980s, being as defined as blue-eyed soul
singers.
Roots music
, including rhythm and blues, began to enjoy another resurgence of interest towards the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s. A number of annual blues festivals were established, including The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival, held at Colne in Lancashire from 1989, which hosts both US and British R&B acts. In 1994 Jools Holland
, former keyboard player with Squeeze and presenter of the highly influential TV show Later..., reshaped his backing band as The Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and, as well as supporting him on the show, they embarked on a series of tours. After leaving the Rolling Stones in 1997 Bill Wyman
formed the Rhythm Kings, which featured guitarists Peter Frampton
and Albert Lee
as well former Procol Harum
keyboardist Gary Brooker
, touring and producing a series of R&B based albums. By 2000 the fanzine Blues Matters!
had managed to become a regular glossy magazine.
During the 1980s and 1990s musicians, particularly African Americans, mixed pop with disco like beats and high tech production to produce the new genre of contemporary R&B
, adding elements of other genres, including funk
, hip hop
and soul music. In the 2000s British artists began to enjoy success with the genre, including Craig David
and Estelle
.
, folk
and classical music
. Others from the 70s and 80s, helped shape New Wave and post-punk
music and had a major impact on later genres, including Britpop
. All of this meant that rhythm and blues has been a major component of the sound of rock music.
in the early 1960s, by British groups, of material previously recorded by American rhythm and blues musicians:
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...
and other urban centres in the UK as predominately young white male musicians attempted to emulate the style and recordings of African American rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
artists. Among the most successful bands in the genre were The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
, Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
, 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...
, the 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...
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...
, many of whom dominated the UK and US charts from 1964, in the wake of the Merseybeat
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
craze, becoming central to the Mod subculture in the UK and a second wave of British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
acts in the US. Several of the bands and their members went on to become leading rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
performers of the late 1960s and early 1970s, helping to create psychedelic
Psychedelic 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
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...
and 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 making rhythm and blues a key component of that music. In the late 1970s British R&B enjoyed a revival through the pub rock circuit, New Wave Music
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and Mod revival
Mod Revival
The mod revival was a music genre and subculture that started in England in 1978 and later spread to other countries . The mod revival's mainstream popularity was relatively short, although its influence has lasted for decades...
and has enjoyed a resurgence of interest since the late 1980s.
Characteristics
Commentators often distinguish rhythm and blues bands from beatBeat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
bands, on the one hand, who were influenced by 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...
and rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
and, on the other, from "purist" British blues
British blues
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...
, which particularly emulated Chicago
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,...
electric blues
Electric blues
Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...
artists, although there was considerable crossover between all three sets of musicians. Merseybeat
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
bands like the Beatles, or from the parallel beat scene in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, were influenced by a variety of American forms of music, including rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
, girl group
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...
s and the early Motown sound, helping them to produce commercial orientated form of music that began to dominate the British charts from 1963. However many bands, particularly in the developing London club scene, were mainly concerned to emulate black rhythm and blues performers, including the work of Chess Records
Chess 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 wider rhythm and blues singer and rock and roll pioneers like 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...
resulting in a "rawer" or "grittier" sound.
British rhythm and blues differed in tone from that of African American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. British rhythm and blues singers were often criticised for their emulation of rhythm and blues vocal styles, with shouts, glottal stops, moans and cries. However, vocalists such as 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...
, 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....
, 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...
and 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...
did not attempt to emulate a particular singer and were seen my some critics as able to sing the blues convincingly and with some power. In cover versions riffs were often simplified or used less frequently. The object of the music was often whipping up energy rather than producing musical finesse.
Many groups were based around guitar and drums and as a result arrangements tended to be guitar-oriented and at higher tempos. Amplification of guitars to the highest levels of their underpowered amplifiers created the over-driven guitar sound that would become characteristic of rock music.
Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden noted that after the split of Blues Incorporated at the end of 1962 four main strands could be discerned in British Rhythm and Blues. Cyril Davies left to attempt to recreate the Chicago electric blues of Muddy Waters. The style would be the major influence on the later emergence of the blues boom particularly through the work of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Alexis Korner continued with Blues Incorporated, bringing in jazz saxophonist 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 developing a more jazz orientated sound. This strand would be taken up by acts including the Graham Bond Organisation, Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
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...
. The Rolling Stones focused on rocking guitar music based on the work of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. A unique form was pursued by Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, who as the resident band at the Flamingo
Flamingo Club (London)
The Flamingo Club was a nightclub that operated in Soho, London, between 1952 and the late 1960s. It was located at 33-37 Wardour Street from 1957 onwards, and played an important role in the development of British rhythm and blues and jazz....
club on Wardour Steet, unusual in having a predominately black audience of American GIs and locals, also utilised jazz, but mixed R&B with elements of Caribbean music, including Ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
and bluebeat.
Origins
In the early 1950s blues music was largely known in Britain through blues-influenced boogie-woogieBoogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
, and the jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
of Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
and Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
. Imported recordings of American artists were brought over by African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
servicemen stationed in Britain during and after World War II, merchant seamen visiting 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...
, 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 in a trickle of (illegal) imports. 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 the emerging market. Outside of recordings, occasional radio broadcasts were one of the few ways that British people could become familiar with the blues. A one-off broadcast by Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
while he was visiting Britain in 1951 was so popular that he was asked to perform for a series of programmes for the BBC, eventually titled The Glory Road and folk song collector Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, then resident in London, produced a series of three programmes under the title The Art of the Negro, of last of which, "Blues in the Mississippi Night" featured folk blues recordings by artists including Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker. The next year the Max Jones hosted programme Jazz Club included a recital of "Town and Country Blues", which played music by a wide range of blues artists.
Jazz
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 OrleansDixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
to produce trad jazz
Trad jazz
Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz" - refers to the Dixieland and Ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style....
. This music incorporated elements of the blues and occasional blues-influenced singles reaching the British Charts, including Humphrey Lyttleton's self-penned "Bad Penny Blues
Bad Penny Blues
"Bad Penny Blues" is a trad jazz piece written by Humphrey Lyttelton and recorded with his band in London on April 20, 1956.- Popular success :It was originally released as Parlophone ER 4184 and became a hit record in Britain at the time....
" (1956), the first jazz record to reach the British top twenty. British trad jazz
Trad jazz
Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz" - refers to the Dixieland and Ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style....
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...
brought over American folk and blues performers who found they were much better known and paid in Europe than America, including 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...
, Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
, Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
and Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...
.
Skiffle
Lonnie Johnson played at the Royal Festival HallRoyal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in 1952 on a bill opened by a group led by the young Tony 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...
, who later took Johnson's forename as his own. Donegan became the key figure in the development of the British skiffle "craze", beginning in Ken Colyer
Ken Colyer
Kenneth Colyer was a British jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted totally to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.-Biography:...
's Jazzmen by playing a variety of American folk and blues songs, particularly those derived from the recordings of Huddie Leadbetter, during intervals to the accompaniment of guitar, washboard
Washboard
A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
and tea-chest bass in a lively style that emulated American jug bands. After Colyer left in 1954 to form a new outfit the band became Chris Barber's Jazz Band, and members of the band recorded as The Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group. They released their high-tempo version of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line
Rock Island Line (song)
"Rock Island Line" is an American blues/folk song first recorded by John Lomax in 1934 as sung by inmates in an Arkansas State Prison, and later popularized by Lead Belly. Many versions have been recorded by other artists, most significantly the world-wide hit version in the mid-1950s by Lonnie...
" in 1956 and it became a major hit, spending eight months in the Top 20, peaking at number six (and number eight in the U.S.). It was the first début record to go gold in Britain, selling over a million copies worldwide. It has been estimated that in the late 1950s there were 30-50,000 skiffle groups in Britain. Sales of guitars grew rapidly and groups performed on improvised bass and percussion in church halls, cafes and the flourishing coffee bars of 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...
, London. A large number of British rhythm and blues musicians began their careers playing skiffle, including 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...
, Ronnie Wood, 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....
and Roger Daltrey
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey, CBE , is an English singer and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in a large number of films, theatre and television roles and also...
. The fashion created a demand for opportunities to play versions of American folk, blues and jazz music.
Folk
At this point the blues was very much seen in Britain as a form of folk music. When Broonzy toured England he played a folk blues set to fit British expectations of American blues as a form of folk music rather than his current electric Chicago bluesChicago 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,...
. Skiffle clubs included the ‘Ballad and Blues’ club in a pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
in 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...
, co-founded by Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
. As the craze subsided from the mid 1950s many of these clubs began to shift towards the performance of English traditional folk material, partly as a reaction to the growth of American dominated pop and rock n’ roll music, often banning American music from performances. The more traditional American folk blues continued to provide 1960s British groups with material, particularly after the emergence of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and in 1964, for example, the song-catalogue of Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") provided 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...
with "The House of the Rising Sun
The House of the Rising Sun
"The House of the Rising Sun" is a folk song from the United States. Also called "House of the Rising Sun" or occasionally "Rising Sun Blues", it tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans...
", Manfred Mann with "John Hardy
John Hardy (song)
"John Hardy" is a traditional American folk song based on the life of a railroad worker in West Virginia. The historical John Hardy killed a man during a craps game, was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894....
" and The Four Pennies
The Four Pennies
The Four Pennies were an English, 1960s pop group, most notable for their 1964 UK chart topping song, "Juliet". The group's name came after a meeting above the Blackburn music shop owned by Mary Reidy, the shop being situated on 'Penny Street' where it is still located today as "Reidy's Home of...
with "Black Girl".
Blues Incorporated
Blues harpist Cyril DaviesCyril 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...
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...
, which served as a focal point for British skiffle acts. Like 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"...
he had worked for Chris Barber, playing in the R&B segment Barber introduced to his show. In 1957 Davies and Korner, deciding their central interest was blues, closed the skiffle club and reopened a month later as The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. 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 initially shocked British audiences with its amplified electric blues but he was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Where British blues had often emulated Delta blues
Delta blues
The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...
and country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
in the emerging British folk revival
British folk revival
The British folk revival incorporates a number of movements for the collection, preservation and performance of traditional music in the United Kingdom and related territories and countries, which had origins as early as the 18th century...
, Davies and Korner, having split with Barber, now began to play high powered electric blues, forming the band Blues Incorporated. Blues Incorporated became a clearing house for British rhythm and blues musicians in the later 1950s and early 1960s. These included future members of the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
, Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
and The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
; 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...
. As well as mentor to these figures and many others, including John Mayall
John Mayall
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...
, Korner was also a historian, writer and record collector pivotal in the growth of the moment, and often referred to as "the father of British blues". 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....
, from which 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...
(Decca), but Korner and Davies had split over the issue of including horn sections into the Blues Incorporated sound before its release. Korner continued with various line-ups for Blues Incorporated, while Davies went on to form his R&B All Stars.
Expansion of the scene
Early British rhythm and blues band like Blues Incorporated found that folk clubs would not take amplified blues bands, 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 FlamingoFlamingo Club (London)
The Flamingo Club was a nightclub that operated in Soho, London, between 1952 and the late 1960s. It was located at 33-37 Wardour Street from 1957 onwards, and played an important role in the development of British rhythm and blues and jazz....
, the Crawdaddy Club
Crawdaddy Club
The Crawdaddy Club was a 1960s music venue in Richmond, Surrey, England. Several other seminal British blues and rhythm and blues acts also played there....
, Richmond, where the Rolling Stones first began to gain attention, Klooks Kleek
Klooks Kleek
Klooks Kleek was a jazz/R&B club in the 1960s, based in The Railway Hotel, West Hampstead , North West London, next to the Decca Records studio. The club was named after a 1956 album by Kenny Clarke .-History:...
, The Ealing Club
Ealing Jazz Club
The Ealing Jazz Club at 42 A The Broadway, Ealing W5, opened in January 1959. Situated in a basement below an Aerated Bread Company tea shop, opposite Ealing Broadway station...
and the Eel Pie Island Hotel. Blues clubs were appearing in the capital at such a rate that in 1963 Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
declared London "The New Chicago!".
The scene soon began to spread out beyond London, particularly into East Anglia and the Midlands, with clubs in Norwich and Birmingham adopting the genre. Jazz bands also followed suit, with the Mike Cotton Jazz Band becoming the Mike Cotton Sound, Warwick's Tony and the Talons becoming the Original Roadrunners and Burton on Trent's Atlantix becoming Rhythm and Blues Incorporated.
The increasing appetite for rhythm and blues was reflected in the growing numbers of Afro-American artists visiting the country. From 1962 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,...
, 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, brought a variety of American blues stars including Waters, Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Willie "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, from Mississippi. He is acknowledged as one of the most charismatic and influential blues musicians, with considerable prowess on the harmonica and highly creative songwriting skills...
, 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...
to the country. In 1964 the American Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan arrived in the UK for a 11-date tour, including in its line-up Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an Amercian pioneering gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll accompaniment...
, Blind Gary Davis, Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
and Otis Spann
Otis Spann
Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....
. The original dates sold out rapidly and six more had to be added. Later that year the first of what was to become the annual National Jazz and Blues Festival
National Jazz and Blues Festival
The National Jazz and Blues Festival was the precursor to the Reading Rock Festival and was the brainchild of Harold Pendleton, the manager of the prestigious Marquee Club in Soho....
was held at Reading in Berkshire.
1964 was the year of most rapid expansion and the peak of the British R&B boom. It has been estimated that there were some 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
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...
's 1956 "Dimples
Dimples (song)
Dimples is a song written and recorded by blues singer-songwriter John Lee Hooker in 1956. Called a "genuine Hooker classic", it is one of his best known songs, with interpretations by several artists.-Original song:...
" 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
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...
covered it on their first album. Howling Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning
Smokestack Lightning
"Smokestack Lightning" is a classic of the blues. In 1956, Howlin' Wolf recorded the song and it became one of his most popular and influential songs...
", released in the UK by Pye International Records
Pye International Records
Pye International Records was a record label founded in 1958, as a subsidiary of Pye Records. The company distributed many American labels in the UK, including Chess, Kama Sutra, Buddah, Colpix and King...
that year, peaked at number 42 in the singles chart and was covered by The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Animals and 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...
. On December 5, 1964 the Rolling Stones version of Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
's "Little Red Rooster", based on Howlin' Wolf's 1961 version and recorded at Chess Records
Chess 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....
in Chicago, topped the UK chart for one week. Many more Willie Dixon-penned songs would be covered by British artists.
The Rolling Stones
The first of the second wave of British rhythm and blues bands to emerge, and the most commercially successful band in the genre, were the Rolling Stones. Formed in London in 1962, they abandoned blues purism before their line-up solidified to focus on a wide range of rhythm and blues artists. They produced their first eponymously titled albumThe 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 oriented 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...
, 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. After their version of "Little Red Rooster" went to number one on the UK singles chart in 1964, the song-writing partnership between 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....
and 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...
gradually began to dominate the band's output in the mid-1960s, giving them their breakthrough international hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
" Satisfaction" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in 1965. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. Richards's throwaway three-note guitar riff — intended to be replaced by horns — opens and drives the song...
(1965), a song which borrowed phrases and rhythms from R&B standards, and would be covered by both Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
and Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
. Blues songs and influences continued to surface in the Rolling Stones' music throughout their long career.
Other London bands
Other London-based bands that pursued a similar course to the Rolling Stones included the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Downliners SectDownliners Sect
The Downliners Sect were a British rhythm and blues band of the beat boom era, formed in 1963 when the existing Downliners band split up.Stylistically, they were similar to The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things and the Rolling Stones, playing basic R&B on their first album The Sect...
, 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...
and the Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
.
- 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 WilliamsonSonny Boy Williamson IIWillie "Sonny Boy" Williamson was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, from Mississippi. He is acknowledged as one of the most charismatic and influential blues musicians, with considerable prowess on the harmonica and highly creative songwriting skills...
on his British tour. They earned a formidable reputation as a live act, developing frantic improvised guitar-harmonica "rave-ups", but they enjoyed only modest success with singles based on R&B covers. In 1965 they cut the more pop-oriented single "For Your LoveFor Your Love-Album reissues:The Yardbirds' 2001 compilation album Ultimate! contains eight of the eleven tracks from the original album. For Your Love has been reissued by several record labels, including JVC, Castle, and Repertoire...
", which made the top 10 in the UK and US, but the move away from the blues prompted Clapton to quit the band for a stint with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and then to form CreamCream (band)Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
. His replacement Jeff Beck (and eventually his replacement Jimmy Page), saw the band enjoy a series of transatlantic hits and to go on to become pioneers of psychedelic rockPsychedelic rockPsychedelic 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...
.
- After an early lack of success with R&B standards, the Kinks enjoyed their breakthrough with the single "You Really Got MeYou Really Got Me"You Really Got Me" is a rock song written by Ray Davies and performed by his band, The Kinks. It was released on 4th August 1964 as the group's third single, and reached Number 1 on the UK singles chart the next month, remaining for two weeks...
" (1964). It was written by Ray DaviesRay DaviesRay 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...
, provided a model for later riff-based hard rockHard rockHard 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 reached number one in the UK and the top 10 in the US. The follow-up "All Day and All of the NightAll Day and All of the Night"All Day and All of the Night" is a song by the British band The Kinks from 1964. It can be found on their debut album "Kinks". It reached #2 on the UK Singles Chart and #7 on Billboards United States chart in 1965....
" (1964) reached number two in the US, while the band also released two full-length albums and several EPs in this period.
- The Downliners Sect formed in 1963, and developed a strong reputation in London clubs, but had less commercial success than many of their contemporaries.
- The Pretty Things had UK hits with "Don't Bring Me Down" (1964) and the self penned "Honey I Need" (1965), which both reached the top twenty, but they failed to break into the American market and would be chiefly remembered for their later psychedelic work.
Provincial groups
Bands to emerge from other major British cities included The AnimalsThe 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, 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 and the 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...
, 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 Chicken Shack
Chicken Shack
Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the mid-1960s by Stan Webb , Andy Silvester , and Alan Morley , who were later joined by Christine Perfect in 1968.-Career:...
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...
. 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 Animals' sound was characterised by the keyboards of Alan PriceAlan PriceAlan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
and the powerful vocals of Eric BurdonEric BurdonEric 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...
. They moved to London in 1964 and released a series of successful singles, beginning with transatlantic hit "House of the Rising Sun", mixing more commercial folk and soul, while their albums were dominated by blues standards.
- Them, with their vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Van MorrisonVan MorrisonVan 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...
, had a series of hits with "Baby Please Don't Go" (1964), which reached the top 10 in the UK, and "Here Comes the Night" (1965), which made the top 40 in the U.S., but perhaps their most enduring legacy was the B-side "Gloria", which became a garage rockGarage rockGarage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
standard.
- The Spencer Davis Group had their first UK number one with the Jackie Edwards penned "Keep on Running" (1965), but became largely a vehicle for the young keyboard player and vocalist Steve WinwoodSteve WinwoodStephen 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...
, who at only 18 co-wrote "Gimme Some Lovin'Gimme Some Lovin'"Gimme Some Loving" is a song written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood, and originally performed by The Spencer Davis Group. The basic riff of the song was borrowed from the Homer Banks song " A Lot of Love", written by Banks and Willie Dean "Deanie" Parker. The song was a UK #2 in...
" (1967) and "I'm a Man" (1967), both of which reached the Billboard 100 top 10 and became R&B standards.
- The Moody Blues had only one major R&B hit with a cover of "Go NowGo Now (song)"Go Now" is a 1964 song composed by Larry Banks and Milton Bennett. It was first recorded by Bessie Banks, and most successfully by The Moody Blues.-Bessie Banks:The song was first recorded by Larry Banks' former wife, Bessie Banks...
" (1964), which reached number one in the UK and number ten in the US. Subsequent singles failed to penetrate the top 20 and hardly broke the top 100 in the US, marking a steep decline in the band's fortunes. However, they would return after line-up changes to be one of the most important psychedelic rock bands and a major influence on progressive rockProgressive rockProgressive 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 Pink Floyd began as rhythm and blues outfit the Tea Party, adopting a new name based on those of blues musicians Floyd CouncilFloyd CouncilFloyd Council was an American blues guitarist and singer. He became a well-known practitioner of the Piedmont blues sound from that area, popular throughout the southeastern region of the US in the 1930s....
and Pink AndersonPink Anderson"Pink" Anderson was a blues singer and guitarist, born in Laurens, South Carolina.-Life and career:After being raised in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, he joined Dr...
and playing the London blues clubs from 1966. By the time they began to record they had already moved on to psychedelic compositions and jams that would make them a central feature of the emerging London Underground scene.
Mod groups
The British Mod subculture, which was at its height in 1965 and 1966, was musically centred on rhythm and blues and later soul musicSoul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
but the artists that performed the original music were not available in small London clubs around which the scene was based. British R&B bands like the Stones, Yardbirds and Kinks all had a following among mods but a large number of specifically mod bands also 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...
, The Smoke, John's Children
John's Children
John's Children were a 1960s pop art/mod rock band from Leatherhead, England that briefly featured future T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan. John's Children were known for their outrageous live performances and were booted off a tour with The Who in Germany in 1967 when they upstaged the headliners...
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
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).
Jazz-influenced acts
The Organisation produced a jazzy form of R&B led by Graham BondGraham Bond
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....
's organ and saxophone playing and gruff vocals. Their rhythm section of 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...
would go on to form Cream with 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...
in 1967. Manfred Mann had a much smoother sound and one of the most highly rated 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...
. They enjoyed their first success with covers of girl group songs "Do Wah Diddy Diddy
Do Wah Diddy Diddy
"Do Wah Diddy Diddy" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich and originally recorded in 1963 by the American vocal group The Exciters.It was soon covered by British R&B, Beat and pop band Manfred Mann...
" (1964) and "Sha La La" (1964), the first of which reached number one in both the UK and the US, but largely stuck to rhythm and blues standards on their albums. Zoot Money, whose Big Roll Band mixed R&B, soul, rock and roll and jazz and was one of the most popular live acts of the era, made little impact in terms of record sales but is noted for its members, including guitarist Andy Summers
Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...
, pianist Dave Greenslade
Dave Greenslade
Dave Greenslade is a British keyboards player. He has played in his own eponymous band, Greenslade, and others including Colosseum, If and Chris Farlowe's Thunderbirds....
, drummer Jon Hiseman
Jon Hiseman
Jon Hiseman is an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer and music publisher.-Career:...
, bassist Tony Reeves
Tony Reeves
Anthony 'Tony' Reeves is an English bass guitarist/contrabassist, noted for his "extremely prominent and complex bass sound" and use of electronic effects...
and saxophonist Clive Burrows. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames were a noted British rhythm and blues/soul/jazz/ska/pop group of the 1960s. They had been the backing band for Billy Fury but, after being dismissed at the end of 1961, their pianist Georgie Fame took over as vocalist and they went on to enjoy great...
mixed jazz, ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
and bluebeat into his music and had three number one singles in the UK, beginning with "Yeh Yeh
Yeh Yeh
"Yeh Yeh" is a Latin soul tune that was written as an instrumental by Rodgers Grant and Pat Patrick and first recorded by Mongo Santamaría on his 1963 album Watermelon Man . Lyrics were written for it shortly thereafter by Jon Hendricks of the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. This version of...
" (1965).
African-Caribbean and Afro-American artists
A number of visiting black stars became part of the British R&B scene including Geno WashingtonGeno Washington
Geno Washington is an American R&B singer who released five albums with The Ram Jam Band between 1966 and 1969, and eight solo albums beginning in 1976.-Early to late 1960s:...
, an American singer stationed in England with the Air Force who was invited to join what became the Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band
Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band
Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band were an English based soul band, active from 1965 to 1968.-Career:The Ram Jam Band were formed around 1964 and evolved out of a group called Les Blues who were formed to rival an English group with a Black American singer called Milton And The Continentals...
by guitarist Pete Gage in 1965 and enjoyed top 40 hit singles and two top 10 albums before the band split up in 1969. Another American GI, Herbie Goins
Herbie Goins
Herbie Goins is an American rhythm & blues singer. He worked mainly in England in the 1960s, notably with Alexis Korner and then as the leader of Herbie Goins & The Night-Timers...
, sang with Blues Incorporated before leading his own band, the Nightimers. Jimmy James
Jimmy James (Singer)
Jimmy James is a soul music singer, known for songs like Come To Me Softly, Now Is the Time and I'll Go Where the Music Takes Me.-The Vagabonds:...
, born in Jamaica, moved to London after two local number one hits with The Vagabonds in 1960 and built a strong reputation as a live act, releasing a live album and their debut The New Religion in 1966 and achieving moderate success with singles before the original Vagabonds broke up in 1970.
The most significant and successful visiting artist was Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
who in early 1966, after years on the chitlin circuit as sideman for major R&B acts as well as playing in bands in New York, was invited to England to record as a solo artist by former Animals bassist Chas Chandler
Chas Chandler
Bryan James "Chas" Chandler was an English musician, record producer and manager of several successful music acts....
. With Mitch Mitchell
Mitch Mitchell
John Ronald "Mitch" Mitchell was an English drummer, best known for his work in The Jimi Hendrix Experience.-Early life and the Jimi Hendrix Experience:...
on drums and Noel Redding
Noel Redding
Noel Redding was an English rock and roll guitarist best known as the bassist for The Jimi Hendrix Experience.-Biography:...
on bass, the band formed around him as The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Jimi Hendrix Experience were an English-American psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which...
became major stars in the UK, with three top ten hits in early 1967. it was followed later that year by the psychedelic album Are You Experienced?, which became a major hit in the US after Hendrix's triumphant return at the Monterey Pop Festival and made him one of the major figures of late 60s rock.
Solo artists
A number of solo artists who emerged from the British R&B scene would go on to highly successful careers in the later 1960s and 1970s. These included Long John BaldryLong 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...
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
and Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. After the dissolution of Blues Incorporated in 1962 Long John Baldry joined the 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...
R&B All Stars, and after Davies' death in early 1964 took over leadership of the group, renaming it Long John Baldry and His Hoochie Coochie Men. The band featured Rod Stewart as a second vocalist, with whom Baldry formed short lived proto-supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
Steampacket
Steampacket
The Steampacket was a British blues band of the 1960s, notable mainly for the fact that so many of its members already were, or subsequently became, famous as individual musicians. It was, arguably, the UK's first "supergroup".-History:...
in 1965. Baldry moved on to front Bluesology
Bluesology
Bluesology was a 1960s English R&B group, best remembered as being the first professional band of which Reggie Dwight - later known as Elton John - was a member.-History:...
, which had originally been formed as an R&B band in 1962 by teenage keyboardist Reggie Dwight, later better known as Elton John. Baldry enjoyed his greatest success with pop ballads, beginning with "Let the Heartaches Begin" (1967), which reached number one in Britain, but, despite supporting the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, he remained virtually unknown outside of the UK. After Steampacket dissolved in 1966, Rod Stewart joined blues-rock combo Shotgun Express
Shotgun Express
Shotgun Express was a short-lived British R&B band formed in London in May 1966. Although it achieved little success at the time, it is notable for having briefly included such subsequently famous musicians as Rod Stewart, Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green....
and then The Jeff Beck Group
The Jeff Beck Group
The Jeff Beck Group were an English rock band formed in London in January 1967 by former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck. Their innovative approach to heavy sounding blues and R&B was a major influence on popular music.- The first Jeff Beck Group :...
, and when that broke up in 1969 he moved on to The Small Faces, which became The Faces, and also began to pursue his solo career, mixing R&B with rock and folk, to become one of the most successful British solo artists of the 1970s. Elton John, taking his first name from Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and his last from John Baldry, formed a partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin
Bernie Taupin
Bernard John "Bernie" Taupin is an English lyricist, poet, and singer, best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, writing the lyrics for the majority of the star's songs, making his lyrics some of the best known in pop-rock's history.In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement in...
in 1968 and after writing several hits for major pop artists embarked on a solo career that would be the most commercially successful of the early 1970s and one of the most sustained in pop music.
British blues boom
The wider rhythm and blues boom overlapped, both chronologically and in terms of personnel, with the later and more narrowly focused British blues boom, which began to come to prominence in the mid-1960s as the rhythm and blues movement began to peter out leaving a nucleus of instrumentalists with a wide knowledge of blues forms and techniques. Central to the blues boom were John Mayall & the BluesbreakersJohn 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...
, who began to gain some national and international attention after the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings. Peter Green
Peter Green (musician)
Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...
started a "second great epoch of British blues", as he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers after Clapton's departure to form Cream.
In 1967, after one record with the Bluesbreakers, Green, with the Bluesbreakers' 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...
. Mike Vernon
Mike 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 had produced the "Beano" album 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,...
and signed Fleetwood Mac and other emerging blues acts. Other major acts included 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...
, 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 Duster Bennett
Duster Bennett
Anthony "Duster" Bennett was a British blues singer and musician. Based around London, his first album Smiling Like I'm Happy saw him playing as a one-man band, playing a bass drum with his foot and blowing a harmonica on a rack while strumming a 1952 Les Paul Goldtop guitar given to him in 1968...
. Fleetwood Mac's eponymous début
Fleetwood Mac (1968 album)
-2004 release:-Personnel:*Peter Green – vocals, guitar, harmonica*Jeremy Spencer – vocals, slide guitar, piano*John McVie – bass guitar*Mick Fleetwood – drums*Bob Brunning – bass guitar on "Long Grey Mare"-References:...
album reached the UK top 5 in early 1968 and as the instrumental "Albatross" reached number one in the single charts in early 1969. Chicken Shack, formed at the peak of the boom in 1965 by Stan Webb
Stan Webb
Stan Webb is the frontman and lead guitarist with the blues band, Chicken Shack.-Career:...
, were unusual in having a female vocalist and keyboard player in Christine Perfect
Christine McVie
Christine McVie is an English rock singer, keyboardist, and songwriter. Her primary fame came as a member of the British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac, though she has also released three solo albums...
. They had a British hit with Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...
' R&B classic "I'd Rather Go Blind
I'd Rather Go Blind
"I'd Rather Go Blind" is a Blues song written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster. It was first recorded by Etta James in 1968, and has subsequently become regarded as a blues and soul classic.-Original version by Etta James:...
" in 1969, before Perfect left to join her husband 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...
in 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...
, but remained largely focused on blues standards. The band then suffered a series of line-up changes and although managing a comeback on the club circuit they never achieved another mainstream breakthrough and split up in 1973. 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 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 late 1950s and early 1960s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.
Decline
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 a variety of new subgenres, including progressive and hard rockHard 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...
. By 1970 British rhythm and blues had virtually ceased to exist as an active genre. Rhythm and blues bands began to find it very difficult to achieve serious album sales, even in the UK. Vinegar Joe
Vinegar Joe (band)
Vinegar Joe were a British R&B band. They issued three albums on Island Records, but were best known for their live shows and launching the solo careers of Elkie Brooks and Robert Palmer.-History:...
, formed in 1971 around the vocals of Elkie Brooks
Elkie Brooks
Elkie Brooks is an English singer, formerly a vocalist with Vinegar Joe, and later a solo artist. Elkie has been nominated twice for Brit Awards' top female singer. She is known for her powerful husky voice...
and Robert Palmer and the instrumental talents of Pete Gage and Steve York, despite popular stage performances, broke up after only three albums with disappointing sales two years later.
Revivals
British R&B continued to be played in the Northern SoulNorthern soul
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged from the British mod scene, initially in northern England in the late 1960s. Northern soul mainly consists of a particular style of black American soul music based on the heavy beat and fast tempo of the mid-1960s Tamla Motown sound...
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 album Stupidity
Stupidity (Dr. Feelgood album)
Stupidity was the third album by Dr. Feelgood. It was released in September 1976, and was their first live album recording. Their mushrooming popularity was confirmed when Stupidity topped the UK charts....
(1976), but failed to make any significant impact in the US.
A handful of pub rock acts managed to achieve mainstream success after the advent of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, often being re-categorised as New Wave music
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, including Graham Parker and the Rumour, Nick Lowe
Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain "Nick" Lowe , is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica...
, Squeeze and Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
. London-based R&B pub rock bands received a major boost when The Jam
The Jam
The Jam were an English punk rock/New Wave/mod revival band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were formed in Woking, Surrey. While they shared the "angry young men" outlook and fast tempos of their punk rock contemporaries, The Jam wore smartly tailored suits rather than ripped...
kicked off the mod revival
Mod Revival
The mod revival was a music genre and subculture that started in England in 1978 and later spread to other countries . The mod revival's mainstream popularity was relatively short, although its influence has lasted for decades...
in 1977 with their debut album In the City, which mixed R&B standards with originals modelled on 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...
's early singles. They confirmed their status as the leading mod revival band with their third album All Mod Cons
All Mod Cons
All Mod Cons is a 1978 album by the British band The Jam, their third full-length LP. The title, a British idiom one might find in housing advertisements, is short for "all modern conveniences" and is a pun on the band's association with the mod revival.The album was more commercially successful...
(1978), on which Paul Weller
Paul Weller
Paul Weller is an English singer-songwriter. Starting with the band The Jam , Weller then went on to branch out musically to a more soulful style with The Style Council...
's song-writing drew heavily on the British-focused narratives of the Kinks. Pub rock bands like Red Beans and Rice, The Little Roosters, The Inmates
The Inmates
The Inmates are a British garage rock/pub rock band, formed after the split up of The Flying Tigers in 1977. In the early 1980s, they had a medium sized international hit with a cover of The Standells' "Dirty Water", and a UK Top 40 hit with "The Walk"...
, Nine Below Zero
Nine Below Zero
Nine Below Zero are an English blues band, who have a cult following throughout Europe, and were most popular in the period between 1980 and 1982.-Career:...
and Eddie and the Hot Rods, all became major acts in the growing mod revival scene in London. Other bands grew up to feed the desire for mod music, often combining the music of 60s mod groups with elements of punk music, including The Lambrettas
The Lambrettas
The Lambrettas were an English mod revival band, active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Named after the iconic Italian Lambretta scooter brand popular among Mods, the band was formed in Lewes...
, The Merton Parkas
The Merton Parkas
The Merton Parkas were a mod revival band, formed in the Merton area of South London in the mid 1970s, by Danny Talbot , his brother, Mick Talbot , Neil Hurrell and Simon Smith ....
, Squire, and Purple Hearts
Purple Hearts (UK band)
The Purple Hearts were often considered one of the best English mod revival groups, the NME calling them "one of the few mod bands to actually cut it on rock’n’roll terms”.-Career:...
. All of these acts managed to develop cult followings and some had pop hits, before the revival petered out in the early 80s. Weller broke up The Jam in 1982 and formed The Style Council
The Style Council
The Style Council were an English band, formed in 1983 by the ex-The Jam singer and guitarist Paul Weller, with keyboardist Mick Talbot. The permanent line-up grew to include drummer Steve White and Weller's then-wife, vocalist Dee C. Lee. Other artists such as Tracie Young and Tracey Thorn also...
, who abandoned most of the elements of punk to adopt music much more based in R&B and early soul. Some major figures of the movement, including Robert Palmer and Steve Winwood, re-emerged as solo artists in the early 1980s, being as defined as blue-eyed soul
Blue-eyed soul
Blue-eyed soul is a media term that was used to describe rhythm and blues and soul music performed by white artists, with a strong pop music influence. The term was first used in the mid-1960s to describe white artists who performed soul and R&B that was similar to the music of the Motown and...
singers.
Roots music
Roots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
, including rhythm and blues, began to enjoy another resurgence of interest towards the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s. A number of annual blues festivals were established, including The Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival, held at Colne in Lancashire from 1989, which hosts both US and British R&B acts. In 1994 Jools Holland
Jools Holland
Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...
, former keyboard player with Squeeze and presenter of the highly influential TV show Later..., reshaped his backing band as The Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and, as well as supporting him on the show, they embarked on a series of tours. After leaving the Rolling Stones in 1997 Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
formed the Rhythm Kings, which featured guitarists Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
and Albert Lee
Albert Lee
Albert William Lee, born 21 December 1943 in Leominster, Herefordshire, England, is an English guitarist known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique. Lee has worked both in the studio and on tour with some of the most famous musicians which stretch through a very wide of genres...
as well former Procol Harum
Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
keyboardist Gary Brooker
Gary Brooker
Gary Brooker, MBE, is an English singer, songwriter, pianist and founder of the rock band Procol Harum. Brooker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 14 June 2003, in recognition of his charitable services.-Early life:Brooker was born in...
, touring and producing a series of R&B based albums. By 2000 the fanzine Blues Matters!
Blues Matters!
Blues Matters! is a British Blues music magazine....
had managed to become a regular glossy magazine.
During the 1980s and 1990s musicians, particularly African Americans, mixed pop with disco like beats and high tech production to produce the new genre of contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
, adding elements of other genres, including funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
and soul music. In the 2000s British artists began to enjoy success with the genre, including Craig David
Craig David
Craig Ashley David is an English singer and songwriter. He has released five studio albums: Born to Do It, Slicker Than Your Average, The Story Goes..., Trust Me, Signed Sealed Delivered and a Greatest Hits album...
and Estelle
Estelle (musician)
Estelle Fanta Swaray commonly known as Estelle, and formerly as Est'elle, is an English R&B singer-songwriter, rapper and record producer.-Early Life:Estelle was born 18 January 1980 in Hammersmith, London, England...
.
Significance
Because of the very different circumstances from which they came, and in which they played, the rhythm and blues produced in Britain 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. In order to sustain their careers most British R&B artists soon moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music. Many from the 60s helped pioneer psychedelic, and eventually progressive and heavy rock, mixing in elements of worldWorld music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, 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....
and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
. Others from the 70s and 80s, helped shape New Wave and post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
music and had a major impact on later genres, including Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
. All of this meant that rhythm and blues has been a major component of the sound of rock music.
UK chart hits
This table lists recordings that made the UK singles chartUK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
in the early 1960s, by British groups, of material previously recorded by American rhythm and blues musicians:
| Month entered UK singles chart | Band | Title | Position reached | Originally by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1963 | Freddie and the Dreamers Freddie and the Dreamers Freddie and the Dreamers were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their stage act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying. The group remained active... |
"If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody" | |
James Ray |
| July 1963 | 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... |
"Come On Come On (Chuck Berry song) "Come On" is a song written and first released by Chuck Berry in 1961. The Rolling Stones released a version as their debut single in 1963.According to the liner notes from the Berry compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight, the performers on the record were as follows:* Chuck Berry: Guitars and... " |
|
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... |
| August 1963 | The Hollies The Hollies The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s... |
"Searchin' Searchin' "Searchin" is a song written by Leiber and Stoller specifically for The Coasters. It was released as a single on Atco Records in March 1957, and topped the Rhythm and Blues Chart for twelve weeks... " |
|
The Coasters The Coasters The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group that had a string of hits in the late 1950s. Beginning with "Searchin'" and "Young Blood", their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller... |
| October 1963 | Dave Berry and the Cruisers Dave Berry (musician) Not to be confused with English 1960s singer Mike Berry.Dave Berry is a British pop singer and former teen idol of the 1960s... |
"Memphis Tennessee Memphis, Tennessee (song) "Memphis, Tennessee" is a song by rock & roll singer-songwriter Chuck Berry. It is sometimes shortened to "Memphis". In the UK, the song charted at #6 in 1963, at the same time Decca Records issued a cover version in the UK by Dave Berry and the Cruisers, who came from Sheffield, Yorkshire... " |
|
Chuck Berry |
| November 1963 | The Hollies | "Stay Stay (Maurice Williams song) "Stay" is a doo-wop song recorded by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. The song was written by Williams in 1953 when he was 15 years old. He had been trying to convince his date not to go home at 10 o'clock as she was supposed to... " |
|
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs |
| January 1964 | Dave Berry and the Cruisers | "My Baby Left Me My Baby Left Me My Baby Left Me is a rhythm and blues song written by blues singer Arthur Crudup in the late 1940s.It gained further exposure in covers by Elvis Presley, who placed his version on the b-side to his 1956 single "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"; by Creedence Clearwater Revival, who recorded it as... " |
|
Arthur Crudup Arthur Crudup Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" , "My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists.-Career:Arthur Crudup... |
| February 1964 | The Hollies | "Just One Look Just One Look (song) "Just One Look" was a hit single co-written and sung by American R&B singer Doris Troy in 1963. The song peaked at #10 in the U.S. singles charts.Details vary as to how the single came to be released on Atlantic Records... " |
|
Doris Troy Doris Troy Doris Troy was an American R&B singer, known to her many fans as "Mama Soul".She was born as Doris Higginson in The Bronx, the daughter of a Barbadian Pentecostal minister. Her parents disapproved of "subversive" forms of music like rhythm & blues, so she cut her teeth singing in her father's choir... |
| June 1964 | 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... |
"House of the Rising Sun" | |
Lead Belly also many other recordings |
| July 1964 | The Rolling Stones | "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... " |
|
The Valentinos The Valentinos The Valentinos , was a Cleveland, Ohio-based family R&B group, mainly famous for launching the careers of brothers Bobby Womack and Cecil Womack, the former brother finding bigger fame as a solo artist and the latter finding success as a member of the husband and wife team of Womack & Womack with... |
| July 1964 | Manfred Mann Manfred Mann Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band... |
"Do Wah Diddy Diddy Do Wah Diddy Diddy "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" is a song written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich and originally recorded in 1963 by the American vocal group The Exciters.It was soon covered by British R&B, Beat and pop band Manfred Mann... " |
|
The Exciters The Exciters The Exciters were an American pop music group of the 1960s. They were originally a girl group, although a male member was added later. The group consisted of lead singer Brenda Reid, her husband Herb Rooney, Carolyn Johnson and Lillian Walker.... |
| November 1964 | The Rolling Stones | "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... " |
|
Howlin' Wolf Howlin' Wolf Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player.... |
| November 1964 | The Yardbirds The Yardbirds - Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals... |
"Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" | |
Sonny Boy Williamson I Sonny Boy Williamson I Sonny Boy Williamson was an American blues harmonica player and singer, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson.-Biography and career:... |
| December 1964 | 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.... |
"Go Now Go Now (song) "Go Now" is a 1964 song composed by Larry Banks and Milton Bennett. It was first recorded by Bessie Banks, and most successfully by The Moody Blues.-Bessie Banks:The song was first recorded by Larry Banks' former wife, Bessie Banks... " |
|
Bessie Banks Bessie Banks Bessie Banks is an American soul singer, best known for her original recording of the Moody Blues’ hit song "Go Now".-Life and career:... |
| January 1965 | The Animals | "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is a song written by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus for the singer/pianist Nina Simone, who first recorded it in 1964. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" has been recorded or performed by many artists, and is widely known by the 1965 blues rock hit... " |
|
Nina Simone Nina Simone Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music... |
| January 1965 | 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... |
"Baby Please Don't Go" | |
Big Joe Williams Big Joe Williams Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar... |
| February 1965 | The Spencer Davis Group | "Every Little Bit Hurts Every Little Bit Hurts "Every Little Bit Hurts" was originally a 1964 hit single for Motown soul singer Brenda Holloway, written by Ed Cobb.Though she was against recording the song again , she reluctantly recorded the song and the label released it in the summer of the year... " |
|
Brenda Holloway Brenda Holloway Brenda Holloway is an American singer and songwriter, a recording artist for the Motown label during the 1960s... |
| March 1965 | The Animals | "Bring It On Home To Me Bring It On Home to Me "Bring It On Home to Me" is a 1962 soul song written and recorded by R&B singer-songwriter Sam Cooke. The song, about infidelity, was a hit for Cooke and has become a pop standard covered by numerous artists of different genres. It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped... " |
|
Sam Cooke Sam Cooke Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and... |
External links
- The Mod Generation: The Rhythm and Blues Scene, essay by Robert Nicholls.