Nostalgia from 40 years ago rules ok!
ROCK ROUTES:THE LONDONR&B SCENEJohn Pidgeon(Let IT Rock, February 1973 p. 48-49 less photo and map)At a time when most receptive organs—eyes, ears, pockets—were turned to Liverpool
and its Merseybeat, another (and as it turned out almost equally important) moment in
rock history occurred in London. Because "the business", the media and their public were
fascinated solid by the Beatles, the Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, in fact almost
everyone with a fringe and a grin who called you "whack" with the correct enunciation,
events in the South went unnoticed by all but a handful of fans, a couple of promoters,
less journalists, and a group of musicians (most of whom ultimately achieved widespread
recognition, though in some cases only after a wait that would test the patience of a lifer).
Apart from isolated pockets of interest in other urban centres—the British rhythm and
blues movement was located almost exclusively in the London area.
Three people were responsible for the birth of British rhythm and blues—Chris Barber,
Cyril Davies, and Alexis Korner—but it would be invidious to ascribe specific roles as
father, mother and mid-wife, despite some assertions of paternity to Korner.
Chris Barber, best known as a jazz bandleader and trombonist, was the major force in
bringing the blues to Britain, and as early as 1953 had formed an intended blues group
within his jazz band. Things didn't however work out as he had hoped, because the vocals
turned the blues into something else: The singer (and guitarist) who performed in front of
Barber on bass and Beryl Bryden on washboard was one Tony (subsequently Lonnie in
tribute to Lonnie Johnson) Donegan, and the musical metamorphosis brought about by
his high-pitched nasal whine was soon known as "skiffle", the first home-grown pop
music craze.
In 1957 Barber backed Bill Broonzy, next he brought Sister Rosetta Tharpe into the
country, and in 1958 first Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and then Muddy Waters.
The purists baulked at Waters' amplification, but Davies and Korner were inspired to
wire up their own instruments. Barber invited them to join his gigs for a rhythm and blues
set, backing Ottilie Patterson on harmonica and guitar, and these spots proved so popular
that the pair resolved to play their own straight R&B gigs with their own electric band.
Davies and Korner had organized and played blues together for several years at their
London Blues and. Barrelhouse Club, but opposition to their electrified music was so
intense in the tight circuit of jazz clubs that they were forced to open their own club (in a
basement beneath the ABC Teashop by Ealing Broadway underground station) in order
to have a regular venue for their band, Blues Incorporated. The club scene in the South
had been dominated by "trad" (a meaningless abbreviation of traditional jazz which aptly
severed its associations with that long-established form) since the late fifties. The term
"trad" was indiscriminately applied to a sound that relied on sub-New Orleans vocals and
a predictably warbling clarinet above an equally predictable banjo rhythm: the shallowest
of musical backwaters. "Beat" music was confined to records, whose studio sessions were
rigidly organized Tin Pan Alley jobs that kept a hard-core of session men in regular
employment, or tours of one night stands where solo singers would file on stage for
fifteen minute slots backed by Sounds Incorporated (if they were lucky) or dancestepping
instrumentalists would spin out a medley of their Greatest Hits. The rest was for
youth clubs and back rooms
Blues Incorporated was just as much a detour around this Nowhereville as it was the
result of a desire to recreate the music of Muddy Waters. The line-up of the band which
played on the opening night of the Ealing club in March 1962 was Cyril Davies
(harmonica, vocals), Alexis Korner (guitar), Keith Scott (piano)j Andy Hoogenboom
(bass), and Charlie Watts (drums), with, briefly, Art Wood as singer. After Wood was
dropped there were other changes. By mid-summer Blues Inc. consisted of Davies,
Korner, tenorist Dick Heckstall-Smith, pianist Johnny Parker, Jack Bruce on bass, and
Ginger Baker on drums, though others including Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Paul
Jones would sit in. By this time Chris Barber had given Blues Inc. a residency at the
Marquee Club (which he ran in association with Harold Pendleton) and the Rolling
Stones made their first public appearance under that name there in July.
Simultaneously another West End club—like the Marquee, a jazz club—the Flamingo in
Wardour Street, was developing its own brand of rhythm and blues in the form of the
Blue Flames, previously Billy Fury's backing group. At first billed just as the Blue
Flames, the talent of the singer/pianist (and soon organist) got his name, Georgie Fame,
stuck out in front of the band's. Because the club catered largely for black GIs and West
Indians at the all-night sessions where he played, Fame's music evolved differently under
the influence of his audience from that of the bands which played the Marquee (with its
young white membership). The GIs would lay Smokey Robinson and James Brown
records on him while the Jamaicans turned him on to Ska. It was a black who first played
him Mose Allison.
When, towards the end of 1962, Cyril Davies left Blues Inc. to form his own band and
was replaced by Graham Bond, the four styles of British R&B were made; the rocking
Chuck'n'Bo style of the Stones, taken up by the Yardbirds and the Pretty Things; Davies's
dedicated revival of Muddy Waters' 1958 sound, which had parallels in John Mayall's
blues crusade; the Flamingo sound, discovered by Fame and carried on by Zoot Money's
Big Roll Band, Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds, Ronnie Jones and the Night Timers,
and other house bands; the post-Davies Blues Inc. was driven by brass riffs and much
jazzier than before—Davies hated saxophones which had in his opinion killed jazz—and
when Bond in his turn left with Baker and Bruce he pursued a similar style, first with
John McLaughlin in the band and then with Dick Heckstall-Smith.
As the following for rhythm and blues grew (through word of mouth communication)
jazz clubs overcame their abhorrence for the music and new clubs opened in and around
London.
The rest of the story is the kind of rock history which made the columns of the pop press.
The Stones got out of the club circuit into the Top Ten and the big time at the start of
1964 and others followed. Cyril Davies died the week their Lennon/ McCartney song, I
Wanna Be Your Man, reached tenth place, Chris Barber was put down as a bandwagon
hitch-hiker, and Alexis Korner looked as if he was never going to break big. (It's ironic
that he finally made it with CCS—a band that would have got blown off stage by any
Blues Inc. Iine-up).
Still, it was fun while it lasted and no doubt would not have done so for so long if the
businessmen hadn't been obsessed with Liverpudlians. More importantly, British rhythm
and blues was the starting point for most rock music that's happened since.
1. THE ROUNDHOUSE A pub on the corner of Wardour Street and Brewer Street, W1,
which was London's "Skiffle Centre" until 1956 when Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner
started the London Blues And Barrelhouse Club. The Thursday night sessions often took
the form of impromptu jams amongst the blues enthusiasts present and were visited by
touring American bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, and Big Bill Broonzy.
2. THE EALING RHYTHM AND BLUES CLUB The first British rhythm and blues
club, which opened on March 17th, 1962. The club was run by Davies and Korner in
order to provide a regular gig for their band, Blues- Incorporated, which was shunned by
narrow-minded jazz club promoters. Various combinations of future Rolling Stones,
Pretty Things and Manfreds would sit in with the house band or jam during the interval.
3. THE MARQUEE CLUB Formerly the "London Jazz Centre" the club's premises
were beneath the Academy Cinema at 166 Oxford Street, W1, when "Rhythm And Blues
Night" was first held in May 1962. The Rolling Stones made their first public appearance
there two months later. In March 1964 the club moved to its present location at 90
Wardour Street, where, having relinquished the "jazz" tag, almost every session was
devoted to R&B.
5. THE FLAMINGO CLUB A modern jazz club situated at 33—37 Wardour Street,
whose "all-nighter" sessions were run by the Gunnell Brothers, Rik and John. The switch
to rhythm and blues was largely stimulated by the musical tastes of the black GIs and
West Indians who accounted for most of the audience. Georgie Fame and the Blue
Flames were the first of the house bands and recorded their classic Rhythm And Blues At
The Flamingo album there in September 1963. The bandroom beside the stage was a
celebrated meeting place for insomniac musicians and people of other late night
professions.
6. THE CRAWDADDY CLUB Opened by Georgio Gomelsky at the Station Hotel,
Richmond, the Sunday evening sessions with the Rolling Stones rapidly became so
popular that the club had to move from the four hundred capacity hotel ballroom to the
larger Richmond Athletics Association Clubhouse. Gomelsky ran a second Crawdaddy
Club at the Star Hotel, Broad Green, London Road, Croydon , where the Animals played
their first gig in the south of England.
9. EEL PIE ISLAND Now demolished, the hotel on the island in the River Thames at
Twickenham (joined to the shore by a narrow footbridge) was a favourite venue.
Everyone played there at one time or another, but no one had a stronger following than
Cyril Davies. With his R&B All-Stars he made his last public appearance there in
January 1964.
10. THE SCENE CLUB Situated in Ham Yard (off Great Windmill Street, W1) was
renowned not only for its live bands but also for Guy Stevens' "R&B Record Night" on
Mondays.
11. THE STUDIO '51 CLUB The Downliners Sect first made a name for themselves at
this club at 10-11 Great Newport Street, WC2, where the Stones had a Sunday afternoon
residency.
12. KLOOK'S KLEEK CLUB Despite its exotic name the club's premises were at the
Railway Hotel, West Hampstead. One of the many jazz clubs which went over to rhythm
and blues, it was the setting for a live album by John Mayall.