Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?

0:00:02 > 0:00:05A lot of people wonder, "What is the blues?"

0:00:05 > 0:00:07I'm gonna tell you what the blues is.

0:00:07 > 0:00:11This programme contains some strong language.

0:00:11 > 0:00:17This is the story of an unlikely love affair, that was awakened, innocently enough,

0:00:17 > 0:00:20in the drabness of '50s Britain,

0:00:20 > 0:00:22but by the '70s, had blossomed into a global passion.

0:00:25 > 0:00:31From its origins as a secret society, all the way to the international stage,

0:00:31 > 0:00:34this is what happened when Britain got the blues.

0:00:55 > 0:00:59'50s Britain - a bombed-out country marked by austerity,

0:00:59 > 0:01:02demob suits, and dreams of better times to come.

0:01:07 > 0:01:11A generation of post-war kids found itself stranded

0:01:11 > 0:01:14in the dust-covered landscape of national reconstruction.

0:01:18 > 0:01:19Yeah, it was grey.

0:01:19 > 0:01:23Like, "When the hell are we gonna get out of here?

0:01:23 > 0:01:24"I thought we won?!"

0:01:24 > 0:01:29Bloody awful. You couldn't get any sweets, either.

0:01:29 > 0:01:32We were on rationing, baby, big time.

0:01:32 > 0:01:37There was no colour whatsoever in Britain.

0:01:37 > 0:01:41Glasgow didn't exist, there was just a sort of grey wash.

0:01:41 > 0:01:44You kept bumping into things cos you couldn't see anything.

0:01:44 > 0:01:50Dark at 4 o'clock, Ovaltine, all that stuff.

0:01:50 > 0:01:54There was nowhere for young people to go, um...

0:01:54 > 0:01:56There was nothing specifically for young people.

0:01:56 > 0:02:03Everything was run by pretty strict rules and regulations by the establishment.

0:02:03 > 0:02:04They were very depressing days.

0:02:09 > 0:02:12Musically, the antidote was obvious.

0:02:12 > 0:02:17Dance bands and crooners provided all the entertainment the country could consume,

0:02:17 > 0:02:20in its dogged determination to make whoopee.

0:02:20 > 0:02:23But not everyone sought solace in the two-step.

0:02:23 > 0:02:31Britain by about 1953-54, was crying out for alternative music.

0:02:32 > 0:02:36The first rock'n'roll wasn't about till about '55, '56, was it?

0:02:36 > 0:02:38Before that, it was gutless music.

0:02:38 > 0:02:46# Lipstick on your collar Told a tale on you... #

0:02:46 > 0:02:50The guts of American rock'n'roll spilled out across Britain in 1957,

0:02:50 > 0:02:53creating the teenage phenomenon.

0:02:53 > 0:02:59But two years later, the emotional and musical rescue it offered prematurely stalled.

0:02:59 > 0:03:02The business had moved in, and the greats had shipped out,

0:03:02 > 0:03:07leaving Britain at the mercy of Tin Pan Alley copyists.

0:03:09 > 0:03:13Elvis went into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis ruined his career

0:03:13 > 0:03:18by marrying his 12-year-old first cousin whilst still married to someone else.

0:03:18 > 0:03:24Chuck Berry crossed over the border and did various borderline activities,

0:03:24 > 0:03:27and Little Richard went into gospel.

0:03:27 > 0:03:33Rock and roll lost its... Well, I suppose really, lost its excitement.

0:03:33 > 0:03:37Watered-down trash, a lot of it, wasn't it?

0:03:37 > 0:03:40Moon In June and Lipstick On Your Collar,

0:03:40 > 0:03:45and all these, "Lipstick on your collar," you know, horrible.

0:03:45 > 0:03:51# Travelling light Mmm-hmm-hmm-hmm... #

0:03:54 > 0:03:58Rock'n'roll's earlier doctors now needed a new drug.

0:04:00 > 0:04:05They discovered the power, depth and authenticity they craved in a music they hadn't heard before,

0:04:05 > 0:04:06the very basis of rock'n'roll -

0:04:06 > 0:04:09black folk music from the American South -

0:04:09 > 0:04:12the blues.

0:04:12 > 0:04:16The intensity and the... It's so direct.

0:04:16 > 0:04:21You know, I hadn't experienced anything like that since the first time I heard Little Richard.

0:04:21 > 0:04:27# I got my mojo working But it just don't work on you... #

0:04:27 > 0:04:31It bypasses a lot of cultural education.

0:04:31 > 0:04:35You didn't need any information with the blues, it just went...

0:04:35 > 0:04:36Boom!

0:04:36 > 0:04:39# I wanna love you so bad... #

0:04:39 > 0:04:43It can be to dance for, get drunk for it,

0:04:43 > 0:04:45to fuck by it, you name it.

0:04:45 > 0:04:50# I'm going down Louisiana Get me a mojo... #

0:04:50 > 0:04:54When it's well put and well performed, it's infectious.

0:04:54 > 0:04:56You don't need to know, even,

0:04:56 > 0:05:00what it is. You go... That's how people get hooked.

0:05:00 > 0:05:06# I'm gonna have all you womens Right here on my command... #

0:05:06 > 0:05:10I think that once you get the bug, it's really hard to get rid of it.

0:05:16 > 0:05:19Catching the bug was one thing, but feeding it was another.

0:05:21 > 0:05:26Specialist shops selling imported American recordings began to appear.

0:05:26 > 0:05:30Many of them, mysteriously, in what became known as the Thames Delta,

0:05:30 > 0:05:32Britain's distant echo of the American South.

0:05:32 > 0:05:39Future British blues artists Tony McPhee, Dave Kelly and his sister, Jo Ann Kelly,

0:05:39 > 0:05:42haunted the Swing Shop, in Streatham.

0:05:42 > 0:05:43# When you get home

0:05:43 > 0:05:47# Please write me a few short lines... #

0:05:47 > 0:05:49That was one thing that really got to me.

0:05:49 > 0:05:52That so many people are interested more

0:05:52 > 0:05:55in how rare this thing was, rather than what was on it.

0:05:55 > 0:05:58# Please write me a few short lines... #

0:05:58 > 0:06:02That's where I got all my John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf on Crown,

0:06:02 > 0:06:03which was 1940s stuff,

0:06:03 > 0:06:04Wolf's stuff on...

0:06:04 > 0:06:10And Jo Ann, myself, and Tony McPhee used to hang around the Swing Shop

0:06:10 > 0:06:15waiting for another consignment to come in, elbowing each other out the way.

0:06:17 > 0:06:21There was a shop in what is now Chinatown in Soho,

0:06:21 > 0:06:22but at that time,

0:06:22 > 0:06:28it was a street of shops selling valves and ex-Army spares.

0:06:28 > 0:06:31You know you have this picture of, sort of,

0:06:31 > 0:06:34men in long raincoats wandering round Soho?

0:06:34 > 0:06:38These were men in long raincoats who'd be standing looking in the window

0:06:38 > 0:06:41at cathode ray tubes and valves and diodes,

0:06:41 > 0:06:47and on a Saturday, in the basement of one of these shops, a guy started importing records.

0:06:47 > 0:06:51There was something very attractive about the fact that

0:06:51 > 0:06:54large numbers, huge numbers of people

0:06:54 > 0:06:59wanted to listen to Bill Haley, and Tommy Steele,

0:06:59 > 0:07:04but that we wanted to listen to Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter.

0:07:04 > 0:07:11Jelly Roll Morton and Lightnin' Slim. I mean, extraordinary names, too.

0:07:11 > 0:07:12I mean, how crazy is that? You know...

0:07:12 > 0:07:17Howlin' Wolf. What is a howling wolf when you live in Surbiton?

0:07:17 > 0:07:24And you thought, "God, how can anybody be called Muddy Waters, or Howlin' Wolf, or Bo Diddley,

0:07:24 > 0:07:27"or Lead Belly?" Where did these names come from?

0:07:27 > 0:07:29What is this? It was a feeling.

0:07:29 > 0:07:33# And then I looked around... #

0:07:33 > 0:07:35But what were these songs about?

0:07:35 > 0:07:38Old 78s, often poorly recorded on the road,

0:07:38 > 0:07:42telling of experiences and feelings that were totally alien to the Thames Delta,

0:07:42 > 0:07:46were sometimes difficult to comprehend.

0:07:46 > 0:07:51Those of us who struggled, like The Rolling Stones probably did a few years before we did,

0:07:51 > 0:07:53to try and decipher the words,

0:07:53 > 0:07:56and couldn't figure out what some of them were from these recordings,

0:07:56 > 0:08:00we would, kind of, make up other words that seemed to fit.

0:08:00 > 0:08:03What did he say? Ha-ha-ha...

0:08:03 > 0:08:07INAUDIBLE SPEECH

0:08:07 > 0:08:13I didn't quite get that, didn't really jot that down, you know what I mean? There was madness.

0:08:13 > 0:08:17Yeah, lyrics were sometimes difficult. And we found that with Little Richard, as well.

0:08:17 > 0:08:22My mother tried to slow the record down to try and hear what he was saying,

0:08:22 > 0:08:24and couldn't work it out.

0:08:24 > 0:08:27She used to come up with some funny ideas about what they were.

0:08:27 > 0:08:31But, yes, yeah, eventually your ear tunes in.

0:08:33 > 0:08:40But when they did tune in, what they heard was often darkly humorous, and emotionally deep.

0:08:40 > 0:08:46Poetic tales of lives untouched by either lipstick, or collars.

0:08:48 > 0:08:50The main charm about the blues

0:08:50 > 0:08:52is that it has such an authenticity about it,

0:08:52 > 0:08:56the fact that when you listen to it you hear these stories,

0:08:56 > 0:08:59and you can visualise that these are real stories.

0:09:00 > 0:09:03When you were seeing John Lee Hooker, you believed what he was telling you

0:09:03 > 0:09:07cos he was talking about the Great Fire of Natchez, which he experienced.

0:09:07 > 0:09:09I think his girlfriend died there.

0:09:09 > 0:09:15And the flood of Tupelo, Mississippi, they were real things that happened in his life.

0:09:17 > 0:09:21I mean, Joe Turner, for instance, is a big favourite of mine.

0:09:21 > 0:09:26And he'd be singing things like, "My baby's gone, she ain't comin' back.

0:09:26 > 0:09:29"She's lower than a snake crawling down in a wagon track."

0:09:29 > 0:09:33I mean, it's so heavy! You think, "What a great image," you know.

0:09:33 > 0:09:38Elmore James, "The sky is crying, look at the tears rolling down the streets."

0:09:38 > 0:09:40I mean, that's fantastic.

0:09:40 > 0:09:44Muddy Waters, "I'm going down to Louisiana, somewhere behind the sun."

0:09:45 > 0:09:48This is magical stuff.

0:09:48 > 0:09:51It's almost like, Sleepy John Estes,

0:09:51 > 0:09:56where he says, "Get away from my window Quit scratching on my screen."

0:09:56 > 0:10:01He's turned his girlfriend into, sort of, a wild animal, kind of ripping on the door, you know?

0:10:01 > 0:10:08If you were a 15 or 16-year-old kid, you were hearing some words, and phrases and implications...

0:10:08 > 0:10:15And that's what made it, not just sexy, I think it made it kind of erotic.

0:10:15 > 0:10:18Cos we knew, sort of, there's something going on here,

0:10:18 > 0:10:23even if we didn't know the references and the slang expressions.

0:10:23 > 0:10:26These blues men, they're talking about getting laid.

0:10:26 > 0:10:30And there's me studying what they're doing,

0:10:30 > 0:10:35but I ain't getting laid. I've something missing in my life.

0:10:35 > 0:10:43Obviously, to be a blues man, I have to go see what this lemon juice is, running down your leg.

0:10:43 > 0:10:46And, you know, these guys are actually living a life,

0:10:46 > 0:10:50they're not studying, they're not blah-blah, they just are.

0:10:50 > 0:10:54And then, so... How do you become what is?

0:10:57 > 0:11:01Being a blues disciple in late '50s Britain

0:11:01 > 0:11:04was like being a part of a hip Masonic Lodge.

0:11:04 > 0:11:10A society so secret that even its own members were sometimes ignorant of each other's existence.

0:11:10 > 0:11:14It was like the formation of a solar system, you know.

0:11:14 > 0:11:18The dust gathers together, the stars form, and all that sort of thing.

0:11:18 > 0:11:23Suddenly you realise, yes, there is someone who lives near you who's got a record by Freddie King,

0:11:23 > 0:11:26or someone like that, you know?

0:11:26 > 0:11:29If you heard someone blew a harmonica in Ealing, you were there.

0:11:29 > 0:11:33Or if someone had an album that you didn't, you'd go to Claygate, or wherever it was.

0:11:33 > 0:11:36It was like Night Of The Living Dead,

0:11:36 > 0:11:43people, sort of, migrating to whoever had this thing that you'd been turned on to.

0:11:43 > 0:11:47Someone had given me the address of someone who'd got a Muddy Waters album.

0:11:47 > 0:11:49Probably got the bus over to Tooting.

0:11:49 > 0:11:52And I knocked on the door at 6:30 in the evening,

0:11:52 > 0:11:56and this guy appears from the back and I said, "Have you got a Muddy Waters album?"

0:11:56 > 0:11:59He said, "Yeah..."

0:11:59 > 0:12:02I said, "Could I see it?"

0:12:03 > 0:12:08And he brought it out and showed it to me, and I said, "Could I hold it?"

0:12:08 > 0:12:11Some very funny people with record collections.

0:12:11 > 0:12:14The things you'd have to do to get in, you know what I mean...

0:12:14 > 0:12:16Let alone get out.

0:12:16 > 0:12:21It was like, "Oh, you've got that?" Or, "You've got this, I'll come round and listen to it."

0:12:21 > 0:12:24We didn't have tape recorders then, so you went round and listened to it.

0:12:24 > 0:12:28I knew Brian Jones, but he mostly bought guitar records.

0:12:28 > 0:12:31Whereas I mostly bought harmonica records.

0:12:31 > 0:12:35So we would share listening to them.

0:12:35 > 0:12:39Brian Jones, big collector. Big record collector.

0:12:39 > 0:12:42And that's one of the reasons I hit on him in the first place.

0:12:42 > 0:12:47They were definitely our versions of Tupperware meetings.

0:12:47 > 0:12:51Yeah, you'd stick guys up, if you found their record collection.

0:12:51 > 0:12:57"You are going to stay down there, right now, while I trawl through..."

0:12:58 > 0:13:00Like, it got like that, you know what I mean?

0:13:04 > 0:13:09Oddly enough, for a younger generation in love with the blues, Britain was the perfect place to be.

0:13:14 > 0:13:18Trad jazz, which also originated from the Southern states of America,

0:13:18 > 0:13:20had stormed the UK in the late '50s.

0:13:20 > 0:13:26But popular trombonist and band leader, Chris Barber, had a passion for the blues as well.

0:13:26 > 0:13:30He was fortunate to have a successful band,

0:13:30 > 0:13:32and to be in a position financially

0:13:32 > 0:13:34where he could do what he wanted to do.

0:13:34 > 0:13:39And so he did what he wanted, which was to bring over blues and gospel performance.

0:13:39 > 0:13:44You know, some people sit back and wait for things to happen, wait for the right time,

0:13:44 > 0:13:47but he just said, "To hell with that, I'm gonna do it."

0:13:47 > 0:13:52Big names in American blues and R&B, he brought them all over to this country.

0:13:59 > 0:14:05I think '57 was the first, with Sister Rosetta Tharpe,

0:14:05 > 0:14:10and then Muddy Waters in '58, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee in '58,

0:14:10 > 0:14:16and going on right into the '60s, he brought Muddy back again, Howlin' Wolf,

0:14:16 > 0:14:20Sonny Boy Williamson, Lewis Jordan, all kinds, I mean, just...

0:14:20 > 0:14:25for him, it was just that he wanted to play with those people.

0:14:25 > 0:14:32He wanted to hear them, right there, you know, playing in front of HIS rhythm section.

0:14:32 > 0:14:36That's why we wanted to get in with the real folk.

0:14:36 > 0:14:40They were helping us to play the blues and jazz better.

0:14:40 > 0:14:44We want these people to help give us the ingredient that we know about,

0:14:44 > 0:14:49but we aren't sure if we're getting it right, we want to get it righter.

0:14:54 > 0:14:59When the legends of American blues first stepped out onto the British stage in the late '50s,

0:14:59 > 0:15:02thanks to Barber's own money and determination,

0:15:02 > 0:15:08the audience that faced them was entirely white, well-educated and well intentioned.

0:15:08 > 0:15:11It was all shirts and ties and Ban The Bomb badges.

0:15:14 > 0:15:19Jazz and folk disciples, not rabid rock and rollers.

0:15:19 > 0:15:25To be honest, there was always a sort of middle class-ness about that sort of audience,

0:15:25 > 0:15:31and they also tended to come out of a slightly left-wing side of politics.

0:15:31 > 0:15:35It must have helped that we were... I wouldn't say reverent,

0:15:35 > 0:15:43but we were obviously caring about playing the music in a genuine way,

0:15:43 > 0:15:45as a genuine expression.

0:15:45 > 0:15:52We really owe this enormous debt, to a music that is utterly alien to our experience.

0:15:54 > 0:15:59Maybe that's why it didn't appeal to black folks living in the UK at the time,

0:15:59 > 0:16:03because it wasn't the black experience that they knew of.

0:16:03 > 0:16:11Few black Americans settled in the UK. It was mostly people from Caribbean, or black Asians.

0:16:11 > 0:16:15The younger rock and roll audience wanted to sing the blues electric,

0:16:15 > 0:16:20something the more purist, Chris Barber Jazz Club crowd wasn't quite prepared for.

0:16:20 > 0:16:23But it was already a reality.

0:16:27 > 0:16:29When Muddy Waters first came to Britain in 1958,

0:16:29 > 0:16:33he plugged in a Fender Telecaster.

0:16:33 > 0:16:35Established audiences here,

0:16:35 > 0:16:42reared on out of date records and quaint ideas of the blues as a rural black folk music, were crestfallen.

0:16:43 > 0:16:45Some purists in the audience objected,

0:16:45 > 0:16:51because they wanted him to come out and sound like the country boy that they'd heard on records,

0:16:51 > 0:16:53you know, playing rural, cotton patch blues.

0:16:53 > 0:16:58GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS

0:16:58 > 0:17:01They had to consider what the audience wanted,

0:17:01 > 0:17:05so when they heard this cry for, "Where's the acoustic guitar?"

0:17:05 > 0:17:09Um, they went away and thought about it.

0:17:09 > 0:17:13So, like, two years go by and he comes back again, and he brings an acoustic guitar,

0:17:13 > 0:17:17by then everyone wants to hear him play the amplified Telecaster.

0:17:17 > 0:17:23Cos it's moved on, it's 1962, '63, and everyone's listening to that sort of music.

0:17:23 > 0:17:28Memphis Slim was on that bill, and I think I took them back to the hotel.

0:17:28 > 0:17:33Either I took them back in my car or we went back on the bus together.

0:17:33 > 0:17:38And I was sitting in the lounge of the hotel with Muddy and Memphis Slim,

0:17:38 > 0:17:42and Muddy was saying, "I don't know what they want. What do people want?"

0:17:42 > 0:17:49Certain English viewers had an idea that you had to be black and wear dungarees,

0:17:49 > 0:17:54and play acoustic guitar, and that meant you were playing blues.

0:17:54 > 0:17:59If you plugged it in.... No, no, I'm sorry, you've sinned.

0:17:59 > 0:18:04People in England had a certain stereotyped idea of what a black folk musician should be like.

0:18:04 > 0:18:08When you see pictures of Big Bill Broonzy in the '30s,

0:18:08 > 0:18:10and he is, he is just so sharp.

0:18:10 > 0:18:17He comes to England in the '50s, and there's this classic film clip of him dressed up as a sharecropper,

0:18:17 > 0:18:21playing his guitar and singing something like John Henry,

0:18:21 > 0:18:25because...this is what the white folks in England...

0:18:25 > 0:18:28# John Henry told his captain

0:18:28 > 0:18:31# Lord, a man ain't nothing but a man... #

0:18:31 > 0:18:34British television, home of The Black And White Minstrel Show,

0:18:34 > 0:18:36hadn't improved much by 1964,

0:18:36 > 0:18:41when it elaborately transformed a disused section of British Rail track outside Manchester

0:18:41 > 0:18:47into a TV producer's idea of Chattanooga to welcome the latest blues package tour.

0:18:48 > 0:18:54I remember some rather staged shot of Muddy Waters with his guitar in one hand

0:18:54 > 0:19:01and a very small leather suitcase walking along a station platform,

0:19:01 > 0:19:04and then bursting, probably, into some blues song rendition,

0:19:04 > 0:19:08which had been staged up, making him look like the travelling hobo kinda guy.

0:19:11 > 0:19:15# People ain't that sad... #

0:19:17 > 0:19:22Some of Britain's young blues fraternity weren't content with just listening to the music.

0:19:22 > 0:19:25They'd learned to play American rock'n'roll, why not the blues?

0:19:29 > 0:19:32That the music like this existed,

0:19:32 > 0:19:39that possibly, we would, in our audacity, think that we could actually play this music,

0:19:39 > 0:19:41I mean, how stupid is that? How extraordinary was that?

0:19:43 > 0:19:49You think of some dopey, spotty, 17-year-old from Dartford,

0:19:49 > 0:19:52who wants to be Muddy Waters.

0:19:52 > 0:19:54And there's a lot of us, you know.

0:19:54 > 0:19:56"Oh yeah, mmm-mmm, mmm-mmm," you know.

0:19:56 > 0:20:04In a way very pathetic. In a way, very heart-warming.

0:20:08 > 0:20:12Wanting to play the blues was one thing, mastering it was something else again.

0:20:12 > 0:20:17This black race music wasn't about to surrender its many secrets so easily

0:20:17 > 0:20:19to vinyl-obsessed British kids.

0:20:22 > 0:20:24# When you ain't got no money

0:20:24 > 0:20:26# And can't pay your house rent

0:20:26 > 0:20:28# And can't buy you no food

0:20:28 > 0:20:30# You damn sure got the blues

0:20:30 > 0:20:32# Cos you're thinkin' evil... #

0:20:32 > 0:20:34You know, they say blues is just 12 bars.

0:20:34 > 0:20:37You've heard one, you've heard... you know,

0:20:37 > 0:20:39guy ain't got no money, he's lost his girlfriend,

0:20:39 > 0:20:43he's at the railroad station waiting for the train, the train's late...

0:20:43 > 0:20:47Of course, of course, my man. You know the problems.

0:20:47 > 0:20:49It ain't like that at all.

0:20:49 > 0:20:56Once you start to play, you realise that it's something to do with... I gotta know how he did that.

0:20:56 > 0:21:01This man just bent the string three yards!

0:21:02 > 0:21:05And made it sound simple, you know...

0:21:05 > 0:21:09And meanwhile he's got a rhythm going here that is unbelievable,

0:21:09 > 0:21:11and he's...

0:21:11 > 0:21:13I mean it's just something you've got to do.

0:21:14 > 0:21:17Enjoying it is not enough. Feeling it is not enough.

0:21:17 > 0:21:21You've got to learn how to do it properly. There are technical things that you...

0:21:21 > 0:21:28To make these sounds come out of a guitar, or a trombone or whatever it is, or a voice, either,

0:21:28 > 0:21:32you've got to know how it is. So, you need to study it.

0:21:34 > 0:21:40Fast, slow, quiet, pin-drop, loud, poignant, down, up.

0:21:42 > 0:21:45# I say it's so hard to know...

0:21:47 > 0:21:50# Ah, someone... #

0:21:50 > 0:21:57That's the dynamic, in the framework of really three or four chords.

0:21:57 > 0:22:03With very little, so much was achieved, in the way it emotionally affected you.

0:22:03 > 0:22:07It's an easy music on the surface to play,

0:22:07 > 0:22:14but then you think, "How do these cats do this? Whoa, this is weird moves."

0:22:14 > 0:22:18You know, where's this coming from?

0:22:18 > 0:22:22You say, "What are they doing? How are they doing that?"

0:22:23 > 0:22:29It's what keyboard players were actually doing with crushed notes and stuff,

0:22:29 > 0:22:35which was in fact trying to duplicate the style of bent notes on the guitar,

0:22:35 > 0:22:39which, as you know, is a physical and mechanical impossibility

0:22:39 > 0:22:40on a keyboard instrument.

0:22:40 > 0:22:44And while this revolution, I think, in music, was beginning to happen,

0:22:44 > 0:22:48of course, as normal, the rest of the world seemed to carry on.

0:22:48 > 0:22:54You know, the bowler-hatted brigade still got up and got the 7 o'clock train to Waterloo,

0:22:54 > 0:23:01not knowing that some of their offspring were buying battered guitars from pawn shops,

0:23:01 > 0:23:04and playing Jelly Roll Morton in the back room.

0:23:09 > 0:23:13Perhaps no-one got to know these visiting blues legends more intimately than Val Wilmer,

0:23:13 > 0:23:19then only a teenage girl in love with their music.

0:23:19 > 0:23:24She met them, photographed them, wrote about them and hung out with them,

0:23:24 > 0:23:28sharing their experience of Britain at close range.

0:23:28 > 0:23:30They met with all sorts of problems here,

0:23:30 > 0:23:32you know, the world was very strange.

0:23:32 > 0:23:36You should be asking the question - how exotic did we seem to them?

0:23:36 > 0:23:41They had to deal with us, and we didn't understand their language,

0:23:41 > 0:23:42you know, we thought we did.

0:23:43 > 0:23:47This one is me with Jimmy Rushing,

0:23:47 > 0:23:51he was Mr 5x5 You know, five foot tall, five foot wide.

0:23:51 > 0:23:56Wonderful singer, great guy, wrote to me a few times... Nice one, you know, to have known him a bit.

0:23:56 > 0:24:02And that was taken by my mother, who had come to the concert with me.

0:24:03 > 0:24:06And that's my mum with Jack Dupree.

0:24:06 > 0:24:12When he put his arm around her, it must have been quite an experience for her, cos he was a rogue.

0:24:12 > 0:24:17Total rogue. Look at him. Mr Rogue.

0:24:17 > 0:24:20It was a shock to me when I first come over here,

0:24:20 > 0:24:24when they take me to a big restaurant for dinner,

0:24:24 > 0:24:27and I couldn't eat the dinner cos I was sitting next to white people.

0:24:27 > 0:24:32And I was shy all the time, I had a terrible feeling because I...

0:24:32 > 0:24:35I was thinking that I'd be insulted at any time.

0:24:35 > 0:24:38I just felt out of place.

0:24:41 > 0:24:46When in London, Dupree often stayed at the evocative sounding Airways Mansions,

0:24:46 > 0:24:52a hotel in a small backstreet just behind Piccadilly, but a million miles away from the Ritz.

0:24:53 > 0:24:58Airways Mansions was the place where all the musicians stayed.

0:24:58 > 0:25:01And I think they'd been staying there from the '50s.

0:25:01 > 0:25:04But the thing was it wasn't like hotels,

0:25:04 > 0:25:11because the hotels tried to stop people taking guests to their rooms,

0:25:11 > 0:25:16and that always created havoc, because black people thought that it was discrimination.

0:25:16 > 0:25:21So, Memphis Slim, there, with his little curtain and everything,

0:25:21 > 0:25:24and the bottle of whisky on it, you know, inevitably.

0:25:24 > 0:25:29And Jack Dupree, who was the first person I knew who stayed there -

0:25:29 > 0:25:33he's only just arrived, and both of them - Memphis Slim and Jack -

0:25:33 > 0:25:37they've been to Cecil Gee's and bought sweaters.

0:25:37 > 0:25:41And on the shelf behind him he's got his requisites for the day.

0:25:41 > 0:25:45He's got some bottles of lager,

0:25:45 > 0:25:47three different types of whisky,

0:25:47 > 0:25:50and the bottle of milk is not for his health,

0:25:50 > 0:25:53it's to mix with whisky, cos that lines your stomach.

0:25:53 > 0:25:58So, that's one thing I learned from a lot of the old blues singers, was drinking whisky and milk.

0:26:01 > 0:26:07By the early '60s, the younger generation of electric blues fanatics had their own scene.

0:26:07 > 0:26:10The epicentre of which was Blues Incorporated,

0:26:10 > 0:26:16a band formed by guitarist Alexis Korner, and his unlikely harmonica playing partner.

0:26:16 > 0:26:18Talk about chalk and cheese.

0:26:18 > 0:26:24Alexis worked with a very, very gruff panel beater

0:26:24 > 0:26:27from Streatham called Cyril Davies.

0:26:27 > 0:26:32But Alexis Korner was this urbane, well-read, beautifully spoken, you know...

0:26:32 > 0:26:39Of, sort of, Russian... Goodness knows what... And they were the most unlikely pair in a way.

0:26:39 > 0:26:41Cyril had a great voice.

0:26:41 > 0:26:47# I got my mojo working But it just won't work on you... #

0:26:47 > 0:26:49He sounded really, really authentic.

0:26:49 > 0:26:53# I got my mojo working But it just won't work on you... #

0:26:53 > 0:26:57He sounded quite black-ish,

0:26:57 > 0:27:01but there was a reality in the way he presented his voice.

0:27:01 > 0:27:06So he was a key person. Apart from his harp playing, which was also very magic.

0:27:09 > 0:27:15Alexis' main skill was not as a performer, neither as a guitarist nor as a singer.

0:27:15 > 0:27:17But certainly as a catalyst,

0:27:17 > 0:27:22Alexis was the most important person in the history of blues in Britain.

0:27:23 > 0:27:28Alexis Korner established a home for young blues enthusiasts on the outskirts of London,

0:27:28 > 0:27:33where the Central Line hit the buffers and the buses went to bed.

0:27:35 > 0:27:40The Jazz Club in Ealing became THE performance space for would-be British players,

0:27:40 > 0:27:44and a clearing house for the first home-grown rhythm and blues movement.

0:27:48 > 0:27:49On a Saturday night,

0:27:49 > 0:27:54you could see most of the people who would constitute the first British blues boom.

0:27:54 > 0:27:59We were all hanging out, you know, and Alexis, bless him, would say,

0:27:59 > 0:28:01"Come up and do two songs."

0:28:01 > 0:28:06And you'd go up and you'd tell 'em all you had your mojo working and...

0:28:08 > 0:28:13So, he was the father of blues in Britain.

0:28:13 > 0:28:18Leaving the grandfather spot open for Chris Barber, of course.

0:28:20 > 0:28:26A young Brian Jones played perhaps the first slide guitar ever to be heard in Britain at Korner's club

0:28:26 > 0:28:30and very quickly tired of catching the coach in from Cheltenham.

0:28:30 > 0:28:33The next thing I heard from Brian was when he rang me up and said,

0:28:33 > 0:28:36"I'm forming a band.

0:28:36 > 0:28:41"So far, it's just me and Keith Richards on guitars, do you want to be the singer?"

0:28:41 > 0:28:45And I said, "No..."

0:28:47 > 0:28:50He couched his invitation in these terms, he said,

0:28:50 > 0:28:52"We haven't been taking it seriously.

0:28:52 > 0:28:54"I'm going to take it seriously from now on.

0:28:54 > 0:28:59"I'm moving to London, I'm getting a flat, I'm forming a band and I'm gonna become rich and famous."

0:28:59 > 0:29:05And it was that last bit that I said, "Oh, Brian. Come off it. We're playing the blues, man."

0:29:16 > 0:29:23At the beginning of 1963, British electric blues was still a hard sell to audiences outside of jazz clubs.

0:29:23 > 0:29:31But by the end of that year, it had taken off big-time, spearheaded by Brian's group, The Rolling Stones.

0:29:34 > 0:29:38We were the only young band doing it, and we were the only real authentic band doing it.

0:29:38 > 0:29:41And doing it in jazz clubs.

0:29:41 > 0:29:45And then we got banned, because they didn't like us - young upstarts.

0:29:45 > 0:29:51And thought we weren't authentic enough, and were doing it too pop-y.

0:29:51 > 0:29:58And then we moved into the ballrooms, and all that, and created a new music for England.

0:29:58 > 0:30:02This first number we're gonna do's a John Lee Hooker original,

0:30:02 > 0:30:04it's called Boom Boom, this one.

0:30:05 > 0:30:08By 1964, British rhythm and blues

0:30:08 > 0:30:10had hi-jacked every venue in the country.

0:30:17 > 0:30:19It was THE live music.

0:30:19 > 0:30:23The Stones, The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Animals.

0:30:23 > 0:30:25# The way you talk

0:30:26 > 0:30:27# Whisper in my ear

0:30:29 > 0:30:30# Tell me that you love me

0:30:31 > 0:30:33# You knock me out... #

0:30:35 > 0:30:37The Animals, a Newcastle-based band,

0:30:37 > 0:30:40were part of a nationwide blues explosion.

0:30:41 > 0:30:42London was Mecca,

0:30:42 > 0:30:46but the blues could now be heard in every British city.

0:30:46 > 0:30:49A young musician from Belfast, called Van Morrison,

0:30:49 > 0:30:53pitched up at Soho's Marquee Club with his R'n'B band, Them.

0:30:56 > 0:30:58# You better stop the things you do... #

0:30:58 > 0:31:01Well, I listen to, um, Charles Mingus

0:31:01 > 0:31:03and, uh, Gerry Mulligan.

0:31:05 > 0:31:08I also listen to Lead Belly and John Lee Hooker.

0:31:09 > 0:31:13Yeah, advanced jazz plus, you know, real down to earth blues.

0:31:13 > 0:31:16- Heavy blues.- Roots.- Heavy roots, blues influence.

0:31:16 > 0:31:20# You're runnin' around

0:31:20 > 0:31:21# You should know better, Mama

0:31:22 > 0:31:24# I can't stand it

0:31:25 > 0:31:27# Since you put me down

0:31:30 > 0:31:32# I put a spell on you... #

0:31:36 > 0:31:41'Well let's hear that number now that's shooting up the charts called Little Red Rooster.'

0:31:41 > 0:31:44SCREAMING

0:31:46 > 0:31:50In November 1964, The Rolling Stones stamped a new teenage sexiness

0:31:50 > 0:31:54on the blues with a hardcore Willie Dixon cover.

0:31:54 > 0:31:56# I am the little red rooster

0:31:58 > 0:32:01# Too lazy to crow for day... #

0:32:01 > 0:32:02Now I must say,

0:32:02 > 0:32:04we must have been wearing brass balls that day

0:32:04 > 0:32:07when we decided to put that out as a single.

0:32:07 > 0:32:09# I am the little red rooster

0:32:10 > 0:32:14# Too lazy to crow for a day... #

0:32:14 > 0:32:16Everybody says you'll kill your career if you do that,

0:32:16 > 0:32:18if you put that out as a single.

0:32:18 > 0:32:19It could ruin you.

0:32:20 > 0:32:23We said, "What the hell? That's what we believe in."

0:32:23 > 0:32:26# Keep everything in the farmyard

0:32:27 > 0:32:30# Upset in every way... #

0:32:31 > 0:32:36Oh. I mean, let's stand up, be men and give 'em a blues, you know.

0:32:36 > 0:32:39Went out on a Friday night and on the Monday it was number one.

0:32:39 > 0:32:41# The dogs begin to bark... #

0:32:43 > 0:32:45That's the only blues, pure blues record,

0:32:45 > 0:32:47that's ever been a number one.

0:32:47 > 0:32:49Anywhere, I think.

0:32:49 > 0:32:53Then it was our job to pay back.

0:32:53 > 0:32:54# Dogs begin to bark... #

0:32:54 > 0:32:56I think we figured we could pull it and we did.

0:32:56 > 0:32:59# Hounds begin to howl. #

0:32:59 > 0:33:01Double entendre again, you know,

0:33:01 > 0:33:05"I got a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for days",

0:33:05 > 0:33:08they saw into it more sexual things.

0:33:08 > 0:33:11I'm not here just to write pop songs for you.

0:33:11 > 0:33:13# Do-do-do, la-la-la-la-la... #

0:33:13 > 0:33:15and all that, you know, I mean...

0:33:16 > 0:33:19Let's see if we can actually spin it back around

0:33:19 > 0:33:21and make American white kids

0:33:21 > 0:33:24listen to Little Red Rooster.

0:33:24 > 0:33:25And go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

0:33:25 > 0:33:29And I go, "Aha, you had it all the time, pal."

0:33:29 > 0:33:32Yeah, "You just didn't listen."

0:33:37 > 0:33:39But not everyone was as reverential.

0:33:40 > 0:33:42There were a lot of people who felt

0:33:42 > 0:33:44you had to faithfully copy the record.

0:33:44 > 0:33:47Um, which seemed to us to be pretty ludicrous.

0:33:51 > 0:33:54You know, and if you did mess with it, you were considered

0:33:54 > 0:33:56an irreligious punk.

0:33:59 > 0:34:03I mean, I know we bastardised the 12 bar quite badly.

0:34:03 > 0:34:07Um, and we put a lot of power chording in and crescendos.

0:34:11 > 0:34:14But also feeding off an audience that wanted that as well.

0:34:14 > 0:34:16They wanted to swing from the rafters,

0:34:16 > 0:34:19they wanted to go crazy bananas.

0:34:21 > 0:34:24# I caught a train, I met a dame

0:34:24 > 0:34:26# She was a hipster, well and a real cool dame

0:34:26 > 0:34:28# She was pretty, from New York City

0:34:28 > 0:34:32# Well and we trucked on down that old Fairlane... #

0:34:32 > 0:34:36I mean, we were 18, and the people who came to see us were 18.

0:34:36 > 0:34:40They didn't wanna, you know, they wanted something with more energy.

0:34:40 > 0:34:42So we did Big Boss Man three times the speed.

0:34:42 > 0:34:45But, I mean, isn't that what the blues is as well?

0:34:45 > 0:34:48I mean, that's, even when I saw it played, you know,

0:34:48 > 0:34:52in ramshackle clubs in the Southern States of America,

0:34:52 > 0:34:55you know, there was that same electricity.

0:34:55 > 0:34:58I mean, we were white kids playing to white kids.

0:34:58 > 0:35:02But actually, you know, I sense that there was still the same vibe going on,

0:35:02 > 0:35:04all those thousands of miles apart.

0:35:06 > 0:35:10They loved the music, they wanted to play it, they worked out how it did,

0:35:10 > 0:35:12it came out differently, it will.

0:35:13 > 0:35:17If I'm white and grow up in South London it's bound to be different.

0:35:17 > 0:35:20It's a...what, you know, but...

0:35:20 > 0:35:23Cyril Davies and everybody they were great, brilliant, but...

0:35:23 > 0:35:25There was something missing though, wasn't there?

0:35:25 > 0:35:27And it didn't connect with our age group.

0:35:27 > 0:35:29Yeah, maybe, yeah.

0:35:29 > 0:35:32Well, I really don't think it did, you know. It was something...

0:35:32 > 0:35:34- It's almost like for a museum. - Well, they were older.

0:35:34 > 0:35:38- Yeah.- They were older than us.- And all the artists were older.

0:35:38 > 0:35:42I mean, we were listening to records by 50-year-old blokes.

0:35:42 > 0:35:48You know, and therefore why, there's no way we could have replicated that,

0:35:48 > 0:35:49had it been enough.

0:35:58 > 0:36:02In a frantic 12 months, ravenous white British blues bands

0:36:02 > 0:36:06carved up and redistributed the black blues songbook.

0:36:06 > 0:36:10The whole locker got raided very quickly, didn't it,

0:36:10 > 0:36:12of blues songs.

0:36:12 > 0:36:16I mean, how much of it was jumping on band wagons.

0:36:16 > 0:36:22Dick Taylor, he used to play with us, I mean, I know that he was no jumper of bandwagons.

0:36:22 > 0:36:26- Everybody had their...- Repertoire. - Their stock in trade.

0:36:26 > 0:36:31And we avoided Smokestack Lightning or something cos the Yardies did it.

0:36:31 > 0:36:34And, you know, Little Red Rooster cos the Stones did it.

0:36:34 > 0:36:38But you picked your way around and came up with your own repertoire.

0:36:38 > 0:36:42The Yardbirds followed us, they used to ask us questions all the time and say,

0:36:42 > 0:36:44"What strings do you use?

0:36:44 > 0:36:48"You know when you do that Little Walter song, how does the middle go?"

0:36:48 > 0:36:53You know, and in the intervals they'd come and chat to us and ask all these questions.

0:36:53 > 0:36:56We actually made a conscious decision that we weren't

0:36:56 > 0:36:59going to play the sort of music The Rolling Stones were doing.

0:36:59 > 0:37:01You know, and as far as The Animals up north,

0:37:01 > 0:37:04that might have been another country, you know.

0:37:04 > 0:37:07I mean you just, you just didn't really worry about that

0:37:07 > 0:37:08or even necessarily relate to it.

0:37:08 > 0:37:12I mean, yeah, we did learn our stuff though. We did learn our stuff.

0:37:12 > 0:37:15And, uh, quite honestly the blues ain't just necessarily black.

0:37:18 > 0:37:21On its journey from the American South to Southern England

0:37:21 > 0:37:24the blues, in the wake of Beatlemania,

0:37:24 > 0:37:26had become a horny teenage music.

0:37:26 > 0:37:29Something the purists weren't happy about.

0:37:29 > 0:37:32White kids stealing black music for their own needs.

0:37:34 > 0:37:38You know, was it racially dodgy? We didn't even think about it.

0:37:38 > 0:37:40I mean, you know, why would you think about that?

0:37:40 > 0:37:44At that time, I mean, you just, you didn't, you know.

0:37:44 > 0:37:48There's a sociological background, you know, to the blues

0:37:48 > 0:37:51and what happened and what the people felt and so on and so forth,

0:37:51 > 0:37:53um, that make it what it is.

0:37:53 > 0:37:57It's very important and I don't think it's right

0:37:57 > 0:38:01to just take bits of it as trappings.

0:38:01 > 0:38:04I mean, I think you owe it to the people who you admire

0:38:04 > 0:38:06not to screw the music up.

0:38:12 > 0:38:15The new teenage audience for British electric blues

0:38:15 > 0:38:18was, yet again, entirely white.

0:38:18 > 0:38:21We didn't appeal to a black audience at all, though funnily enough,

0:38:21 > 0:38:25when Paul Jones and I were first trying to get a band together

0:38:25 > 0:38:28we were rehearsing in a pub in Colliers Wood, South London,

0:38:28 > 0:38:31and the landlord came up and said,

0:38:31 > 0:38:35"The band I've booked to play downstairs haven't turned up

0:38:35 > 0:38:37"and would you like to play?"

0:38:37 > 0:38:41And we went down and played and we were greeted with stunned indifference.

0:38:41 > 0:38:44But then a black man came in at the back of the bar

0:38:44 > 0:38:47and he probably got a pint of Guinness and stood there

0:38:47 > 0:38:49and we saw that he was tapping his foot.

0:38:49 > 0:38:54And honestly, we felt so good that one person in that audience

0:38:54 > 0:38:57was enjoying what we were attempting to do

0:38:57 > 0:38:58and he was black.

0:39:04 > 0:39:07British blues players weren't themselves black,

0:39:07 > 0:39:09and didn't appeal to black audiences.

0:39:09 > 0:39:12But their love of the music lead them to identify themselves

0:39:12 > 0:39:14with the black man's burden.

0:39:14 > 0:39:18Something far weightier than anything suburban Britain could offer.

0:39:20 > 0:39:24They never were sharecroppers, they never lived in abject poverty,

0:39:24 > 0:39:26they didn't have to go and sit on a stoop

0:39:26 > 0:39:30in the middle of a tiny little town in Texas like Blind Lemon Jefferson

0:39:30 > 0:39:35did with a cup, you know, to get nickels and dimes and even pennies.

0:39:35 > 0:39:37You know, they never had to do that.

0:39:37 > 0:39:40This is what I find absolutely so extraordinary

0:39:40 > 0:39:46that the white British blues thing that developed, developed in,

0:39:46 > 0:39:50mainly, in this genteel area of Southern England.

0:39:50 > 0:39:52I mean, how ridiculous is that?

0:39:52 > 0:39:57I suppose one did feel a certain sympathy, empathy or something

0:39:57 > 0:39:59with people who were oppressed.

0:39:59 > 0:40:03But I was never oppressed, I mean, that's stupid.

0:40:04 > 0:40:07It was the romanticism of it, I suppose, to some extent.

0:40:09 > 0:40:12"Wow, look how horribly those people were treated.

0:40:12 > 0:40:15"Boy, I'm with them."

0:40:18 > 0:40:22In the early '60s, being "with them" and being desperate to feel something

0:40:22 > 0:40:25meant knowing about the American Civil Rights Movement

0:40:25 > 0:40:28and the violent struggles to end slavery and segregation.

0:40:32 > 0:40:37It was a cause to live, wasn't it, of our generation.

0:40:37 > 0:40:40Reading James Baldwin and, that's what you did

0:40:40 > 0:40:45as a young adult in the '60s, really.

0:40:45 > 0:40:47Most of the people I knew who were into R'n'B

0:40:47 > 0:40:51really knew what was going on in America in terms of civil rights.

0:40:51 > 0:40:56And we all knew how black people were treated.

0:40:58 > 0:41:01I mean, that's why it was probably dangerous.

0:41:01 > 0:41:03White, young intellectuals

0:41:03 > 0:41:06going down trying to find old black men in Mississippi.

0:41:06 > 0:41:10At that time you had the Civil Rights and you might end up in the swamp.

0:41:11 > 0:41:15This is Paul Oliver who was THE blues writer.

0:41:17 > 0:41:19And he was very much in evidence in those days.

0:41:19 > 0:41:22He and his wife, Valerie, they'd been to the States

0:41:22 > 0:41:25and done a tour of the South

0:41:25 > 0:41:28and recorded a lot of people and interviewed people

0:41:28 > 0:41:32in a rehearsals at the Albert Hall

0:41:32 > 0:41:37for a concert and it's important to get the history down, you know. People were very serious about it.

0:41:48 > 0:41:52For some musicians it was also important to get the precise sound down.

0:41:52 > 0:41:55Exactly, if at all possible.

0:41:59 > 0:42:02These records were what we were trying to attain.

0:42:02 > 0:42:05The sound of it, the feel of it. The whole concept of it,

0:42:05 > 0:42:08but because none of us, including me at that time,

0:42:08 > 0:42:11had ever been to America and ever walked into a recording studio,

0:42:11 > 0:42:14we had no concept of how they made their records.

0:42:14 > 0:42:17Where to put the microphone.

0:42:17 > 0:42:18HE STAMPS

0:42:18 > 0:42:20Get the sound of the room, you know?

0:42:20 > 0:42:24Where John Lee Hooker would put his foot.

0:42:26 > 0:42:29Put the microphone a little further back.

0:42:29 > 0:42:32Cos you could hear on Johnson's

0:42:32 > 0:42:37where they deliberately pulled the microphone back to get more guitar

0:42:37 > 0:42:40and so he's wailing over the top

0:42:40 > 0:42:42and there's others where it's almost in his face.

0:42:42 > 0:42:46Whatever you do it's never going to sound like the American records

0:42:46 > 0:42:50because these are black artists who are from the South,

0:42:50 > 0:42:53who have a sound vocally that is uniquely theirs

0:42:53 > 0:42:58and that is part of what we talk about as being the blues.

0:42:58 > 0:43:02Um, and to recreate that is almost an impossibility.

0:43:05 > 0:43:09Recording this music in the UK became a generational struggle

0:43:09 > 0:43:12as young blues musicians ran the gauntlet

0:43:12 > 0:43:14of jobsworth British recording engineers

0:43:14 > 0:43:16in their starched white coats.

0:43:16 > 0:43:17Sometimes brown coats!

0:43:19 > 0:43:21Yeah, but I mean they were so de rigueur, you know,

0:43:21 > 0:43:26like, uh, "You can't do this, you're overloading." Yes!

0:43:26 > 0:43:28We wanna overload.

0:43:28 > 0:43:30They didn't want to go into the red.

0:43:30 > 0:43:33They were taught that you don't distort.

0:43:33 > 0:43:37"Distortion, dear boy, is bad news."

0:43:38 > 0:43:42You're up against this monolithic idea of, like,

0:43:42 > 0:43:44the correct method of recording.

0:43:44 > 0:43:48And, we're not looking for the correct method.

0:43:48 > 0:43:51We're looking for the incorrect method, you know?

0:43:53 > 0:43:56But of course in the blues you do distort, you do go in the red.

0:43:56 > 0:43:59It is rough, it does go out of tempo.

0:43:59 > 0:44:04That's the beauty of it because it's coming from the moment, you know?

0:44:04 > 0:44:09"Sorry, mind my microphone."

0:44:09 > 0:44:11Well, I'm not trying to hurt it, you know.

0:44:11 > 0:44:14"No, you're playing too loud into it and you've moved it!"

0:44:16 > 0:44:19After learning to play and learning to record,

0:44:19 > 0:44:21came the hardest lesson of all - learning your place.

0:44:21 > 0:44:24American blues masters continued to visit Britain,

0:44:24 > 0:44:28but now there was a generation of young musicians to back them.

0:44:28 > 0:44:32First in line to share the same stage with a blues legend in 1964

0:44:32 > 0:44:35were the Bluesbreakers, led by John Mayall.

0:44:36 > 0:44:38They wanted to bring over

0:44:38 > 0:44:40John Lee Hooker as a test thing

0:44:40 > 0:44:43and they booked him a whole string of dates up and down the country

0:44:43 > 0:44:46with the Bluesbreakers backing him.

0:44:46 > 0:44:53We played all the places and we opened at the Flamingo and there was a phenomenal response to that.

0:44:53 > 0:44:55And it kind of pioneered the way.

0:44:58 > 0:45:03There's John Mayall looking at him with, well, we can only see half his face!

0:45:03 > 0:45:05He looks from here as though he might be a bit dubious,

0:45:05 > 0:45:09but I can assure you he's not, he's looking at him with admiration.

0:45:09 > 0:45:12The marvellous Mr Hooker. I didn't get to know him well.

0:45:12 > 0:45:16We had a meal together one afternoon, but that was when I went to interview him

0:45:16 > 0:45:20and we went off and had chicken and chips or something which, you know,

0:45:20 > 0:45:22in those days that was the height of cool.

0:45:22 > 0:45:25But meeting him was the height of cool, I can assure you.

0:45:29 > 0:45:32When The Groundhogs backed Hooker that same year,

0:45:32 > 0:45:36guitarist Tony McPhee took the opportunity to look and learn from his hero.

0:45:36 > 0:45:38# Boom, boom, boom, boom

0:45:39 > 0:45:41# I'm gonna shoot you right down... #

0:45:41 > 0:45:43Just watching him, his technique,

0:45:43 > 0:45:48well, I saw him, first time we did the first week,

0:45:48 > 0:45:51I saw him, he played fingerstyle, without picks. I went,

0:45:51 > 0:45:52"That's it, I'll do that."

0:45:52 > 0:45:54# Boom, boom, boom, boom... #

0:45:54 > 0:45:57And the other thing was he had his strap over his right shoulder.

0:45:58 > 0:46:00# Up and down the floor... #

0:46:00 > 0:46:01I thought I'd do that as well.

0:46:01 > 0:46:04Which, even now, it falls off.

0:46:04 > 0:46:06# That baby talk... #

0:46:06 > 0:46:08But it's easy to put on.

0:46:08 > 0:46:10# I like it like that... #

0:46:10 > 0:46:11Everything he did I wanted to do.

0:46:11 > 0:46:13# Ho-ho-ho-ho... #

0:46:13 > 0:46:16To make me him in white form.

0:46:20 > 0:46:23McPhee also learned the real meaning of "backing group".

0:46:23 > 0:46:26When I did a solo, he used to stand in front of me...

0:46:27 > 0:46:29and do his stuff!

0:46:30 > 0:46:33Everybody would probably think it was him playing. That was me.

0:46:33 > 0:46:35But I didn't mind, didn't care.

0:46:35 > 0:46:39They had no idea about keeping time, necessarily.

0:46:39 > 0:46:42Cos often they start out, they play by themselves,

0:46:42 > 0:46:45- they would just stamp their feet. - STAMPS HIS FEET

0:46:45 > 0:46:49You know, and when they got more excited they stamped them faster.

0:46:49 > 0:46:53So if you were trying to play with them, and follow them,

0:46:53 > 0:46:55it wasn't easy, you know.

0:46:55 > 0:46:57Telepathy, I think. You learn telepathy.

0:46:57 > 0:47:01With John, especially, because you didn't know where he was going to change.

0:47:01 > 0:47:02He changed whenever he wanted to.

0:47:04 > 0:47:05# Start rolling

0:47:07 > 0:47:08# Ah...! #

0:47:08 > 0:47:11He said, "What I like about you guys is that I can do

0:47:11 > 0:47:13"11 bars, 16 bars, 12 and a half,

0:47:13 > 0:47:16"but you know when to change cos you just feel it."

0:47:16 > 0:47:17You know, it's coming up to it.

0:47:17 > 0:47:22It's the movement in it and the way he's shifting the patterns

0:47:22 > 0:47:26and the rhythms and, um, the way the chords are falling, you know,

0:47:26 > 0:47:30and what he's doing with them, are just terrifying.

0:47:30 > 0:47:34We did realise, you know, pretty early on

0:47:34 > 0:47:37that we were these white impostors.

0:47:37 > 0:47:38I mean, we played with, you know,

0:47:38 > 0:47:41people like Sonny Boy Williamson for Christ's sake.

0:47:42 > 0:47:44You know, he used to get very drunk,

0:47:44 > 0:47:48would think nothing of changing arrangements, screwing up the band.

0:47:48 > 0:47:51Anyway, we were whities, what did he care.

0:47:51 > 0:47:54And he'd actually said, when he got back to the States,

0:47:54 > 0:47:58"These boys wanna play the blues so badly and believe you me they do!"

0:47:58 > 0:48:00You know.

0:48:00 > 0:48:02Which was probably a very nice thing for him to say.

0:48:05 > 0:48:09Manfred Mann, who already had several chart hits to their name,

0:48:09 > 0:48:12also accepted the honour of backing Sonny Boy on stage.

0:48:12 > 0:48:13Thank you very much.

0:48:15 > 0:48:18Sonny Boy was a grumpy old character.

0:48:18 > 0:48:21But the problem really was that Manfred Mann

0:48:21 > 0:48:24was made up, mostly, of trained musicians.

0:48:24 > 0:48:28Musicians who could read music and write music.

0:48:29 > 0:48:33And we fell out over how many bars there are in a 12-bar blues.

0:48:33 > 0:48:36You know, I mean, the trained musicians

0:48:36 > 0:48:38thought it must be 12, surely.

0:48:40 > 0:48:43# You just keep it all to yourself... #

0:48:43 > 0:48:45And Sonny Boy knew the correct answer, which was,

0:48:45 > 0:48:48"Any number that I want it to be."

0:48:48 > 0:48:49# Do that for me, darling

0:48:49 > 0:48:52# Don't make it to no-one else... #

0:49:15 > 0:49:20Here we have the rather devilish, satanic-looking Sonny Boy Williamson

0:49:20 > 0:49:23with his harlequin suit

0:49:23 > 0:49:27which was in a black and sort of beige, as I recall.

0:49:28 > 0:49:32I remember Sonny Boy Williamson was staying with our manager,

0:49:32 > 0:49:36Giorgio Gomelsky, in his flat in Lexham Gardens round the corner here

0:49:36 > 0:49:41and one day we came home to the flat and there's all this noise going on,

0:49:41 > 0:49:47you know, and we opened the bathroom and Sonny Boy Williamson is plucking a live chicken.

0:49:47 > 0:49:49In the bathroom, you know.

0:49:49 > 0:49:51Like he did back home, you know.

0:49:51 > 0:49:55So there was a lot of cultural differences, you see.

0:49:59 > 0:50:02Cultural differences became increasingly obvious

0:50:02 > 0:50:04the more American blues legends

0:50:04 > 0:50:06began visiting Britain in the early '60s.

0:50:06 > 0:50:09Tours mounted on shoestrings

0:50:09 > 0:50:13often relied on artists staying with their fans, not in hotels.

0:50:13 > 0:50:16When Jesse Fuller first came to Britain,

0:50:16 > 0:50:21Val Wilmer invited him to stay with her and her mother in South London.

0:50:21 > 0:50:23I went to see him as soon as he arrived

0:50:23 > 0:50:25and then I brought him over to our house

0:50:25 > 0:50:27and this was in Streatham in South London,

0:50:27 > 0:50:30which was a rather smart place in those days.

0:50:30 > 0:50:34And there he is taking tea in my mother's drawing room.

0:50:35 > 0:50:39And then he played for us, harmonica and kazoo,

0:50:39 > 0:50:42with a harness round his neck so he could switch from one to the other

0:50:42 > 0:50:44and play guitar at the same time.

0:50:44 > 0:50:48Allegedly Dylan, Bob Dylan, copied that harness from him.

0:50:50 > 0:50:53And there he is with my brother.

0:50:54 > 0:50:58I love these photographs, although I took them myself, I love them,

0:50:58 > 0:51:00because it was a special time.

0:51:02 > 0:51:04We didn't get on all that well, actually,

0:51:04 > 0:51:08I found him a very miserable person, to be quite frank.

0:51:08 > 0:51:11He always complained about the fact that he didn't have,

0:51:11 > 0:51:13he couldn't get a hamburger, you know.

0:51:13 > 0:51:15I don't know if Wimpy's had started in those days,

0:51:15 > 0:51:21but he was always complaining about it, so my mother got him some mince

0:51:21 > 0:51:25and he made his own hamburgers, so there he is cooking it in the kitchen.

0:51:27 > 0:51:30And we'd like you to meet the king of Smokestack Lightning,

0:51:30 > 0:51:32Howlin' Wolf.

0:51:32 > 0:51:34APPLAUSE

0:51:35 > 0:51:39Chris Barber had first invited Howlin' Wolf to the UK in 1962.

0:51:39 > 0:51:43On subsequent visits, young British blues musicians discovered that,

0:51:43 > 0:51:47as far as The Wolf was concerned, rehearsals were for pussies.

0:51:47 > 0:51:49Wolf walked in with his tour manager.

0:51:52 > 0:51:54And he used to just, "Mmm, hmm,"

0:51:54 > 0:51:57looked around, looked at us, looked at him, "Mmm, mmm."

0:51:59 > 0:52:02And we thought, "Well, we're gonna rehearse now."

0:52:02 > 0:52:03And he pulled out a harp.

0:52:03 > 0:52:06He just started playing a slow blues and we joined in.

0:52:06 > 0:52:08We did about two choruses.

0:52:08 > 0:52:10"Hmm, yeah, they're fine.

0:52:11 > 0:52:12"See you tomorrow."

0:52:12 > 0:52:15First gig, tomorrow in Sunderland.

0:52:17 > 0:52:21# Ah, oh, the train I ride on

0:52:24 > 0:52:28# Oh, they shine like gold

0:52:35 > 0:52:40# Whoo-hoo, whoo... #

0:52:41 > 0:52:46I hears, uh, Memphis Slim and, uh, Muddy Waters say,

0:52:46 > 0:52:48"The white man can't play the blues."

0:52:48 > 0:52:52They should never say such thing as that, "The white man can't play the blues."

0:52:52 > 0:52:54Anybody can play the blues, white or black.

0:52:54 > 0:52:57But he can't feel what I feel,

0:52:57 > 0:52:59because he never lived a slave life.

0:52:59 > 0:53:02He didn't have nobody to spit in his face

0:53:02 > 0:53:04and he couldn't do nothing about it and he's a man.

0:53:04 > 0:53:07See, so this is what blues is all about.

0:53:07 > 0:53:10Whisky, women and blues!

0:53:14 > 0:53:17But in the States, whisky, women and especially the blues

0:53:17 > 0:53:19simply weren't on the menu any more.

0:53:22 > 0:53:26In America, even the blacks didn't like the blues any more,

0:53:26 > 0:53:27it was considered old hat.

0:53:27 > 0:53:32Uncle Tom, you know, like, who listens to George Formby, you know?

0:53:32 > 0:53:35Come on, we love him, but...you know.

0:53:35 > 0:53:39There's not a lot of George Formby tribute bands. Or maybe there are!

0:53:41 > 0:53:45You know, there's the problem of black people

0:53:45 > 0:53:48not wanting to be reminded of their roots

0:53:48 > 0:53:51and wanting to hear things that were more suave

0:53:51 > 0:53:53and middle class and sophisticated.

0:53:53 > 0:53:57A lot of the younger black people wanted to move on.

0:53:57 > 0:53:59Move on up, if you like.

0:53:59 > 0:54:03And the blues were, yeah, they were associated with, you know, the Delta,

0:54:03 > 0:54:05the cotton and slavery, even.

0:54:06 > 0:54:10It goes back, I mean it goes back to that, it goes back to West Africa.

0:54:14 > 0:54:17In a kind of unofficial exchange programme,

0:54:17 > 0:54:20British R'n'B bands began visiting America,

0:54:20 > 0:54:23unaware that the blues were ignored in their own country.

0:54:24 > 0:54:27They were about to change the course of popular music forever.

0:54:30 > 0:54:33Some bands finally achieved the recorded sound

0:54:33 > 0:54:38they'd so desperately sought in Britain at Chess Records in Chicago.

0:54:42 > 0:54:442220 South Michigan Avenue.

0:54:46 > 0:54:48And suddenly you're in the room.

0:54:48 > 0:54:49THE room.

0:54:49 > 0:54:51One of THE rooms.

0:54:52 > 0:54:55They knew about sound, they knew about guitars.

0:54:55 > 0:54:57They knew about guitar players.

0:54:57 > 0:55:01And they had it all geared up, you know, and it was just amazing.

0:55:01 > 0:55:05In came Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, um, Muddy,

0:55:05 > 0:55:09um, Buddy Guy, all came in to listen to us.

0:55:09 > 0:55:13Yeah, they wanted to know, like, how we were doing it

0:55:13 > 0:55:15and WHY we wanted to do it.

0:55:15 > 0:55:18You know, "Why you wanna play like me?"

0:55:18 > 0:55:22Oh, well, it happens to be very good stuff, you know.

0:55:24 > 0:55:26You know, and one day I might get there!

0:55:26 > 0:55:27You know...

0:55:29 > 0:55:32..what, what were they thinking about us?

0:55:32 > 0:55:38You know, you're doing our stuff and da-da-da-da

0:55:38 > 0:55:40and coming into our world.

0:55:42 > 0:55:46Luckily it was a happy marriage

0:55:46 > 0:55:49because we paid attention and we knew, you know,

0:55:49 > 0:55:52in truth, really how to behave.

0:55:52 > 0:55:54Just the first take, I mean,

0:55:54 > 0:55:58I mean, I think we all went outside and wept and said,

0:55:58 > 0:56:02"Yes. I mean... It's that easy?"

0:56:02 > 0:56:07That was the time that The Yardbirds got their sound down onto tape.

0:56:07 > 0:56:11Then we moved down to Memphis and had an amazing opportunity to record at Sun Studios.

0:56:11 > 0:56:17With the very guy who recorded Howlin' Wolf and Elvis Presley,

0:56:17 > 0:56:18Sam Phillips.

0:56:18 > 0:56:21He came in from a weekend's fishing trip.

0:56:21 > 0:56:24I don't know how we did it.

0:56:24 > 0:56:27And it was in a room, a tiny little room, you know,

0:56:27 > 0:56:28the size of a kitchen.

0:56:28 > 0:56:33Where everything, you know, old amps, mics that weren't moved.

0:56:33 > 0:56:35But what a kick-arse sound, I mean, these guys...

0:56:35 > 0:56:39Blues hasn't been a popular music in America.

0:56:40 > 0:56:45And, in fact, it seemed like white America didn't even know about blues,

0:56:45 > 0:56:48only little corners here, corners there.

0:56:49 > 0:56:51But when The Rolling Stones,

0:56:51 > 0:56:53The Who,

0:56:53 > 0:56:55and I can name you quite a few groups

0:56:55 > 0:56:59that came over HERE after The Beatles.

0:56:59 > 0:57:03Oh, boy, it opened up then.

0:57:03 > 0:57:08In America, the audience for blues was black

0:57:08 > 0:57:11until the British thing...

0:57:11 > 0:57:16and then people started listening to, like, John Mayall or maybe us,

0:57:16 > 0:57:20or whoever and I talked to a guy, said he actually discovered

0:57:20 > 0:57:25that John Lee Hooker, who he'd never heard of, lived two blocks away.

0:57:25 > 0:57:28The media didn't know what it was.

0:57:28 > 0:57:32You know the famous thing about The Beatles when they said, you know,

0:57:32 > 0:57:35"What do you most want to see when you're over here?"

0:57:35 > 0:57:39And they said, "Muddy Waters." And they said, "Where's that?"

0:57:39 > 0:57:42And when anybody ever asked us, "Who did that song?"

0:57:42 > 0:57:45We'd say, "That's an Elmore James song, a Muddy Waters song,

0:57:45 > 0:57:48"that's a Howlin' Wolf song, Little Walter,"

0:57:48 > 0:57:54and gave them the credit and talked about it in interviews and how great they were and all that, you know.

0:57:54 > 0:57:56We were getting letters from people in Chicago

0:57:56 > 0:57:59saying, "Where can I find this music?"

0:57:59 > 0:58:03We used to say, "Go across the bridge and it's there."

0:58:03 > 0:58:06They did start to sell records, they did start to cross over,

0:58:06 > 0:58:09they did start to sell in the white man's territory.

0:58:09 > 0:58:13It's an awful thing to say, isn't it? White man's territory, but it was like that.

0:58:13 > 0:58:18"Hey, these English cats are getting the hang of it and they're gonna help us."

0:58:21 > 0:58:25So sometimes you use that fame bit as a...

0:58:25 > 0:58:28yeah, to do what you think you gotta do.

0:58:32 > 0:58:37British R'n'B bands had not only sold their take on American blues to white kids in the States,

0:58:37 > 0:58:41they also brought their heroes to the attention of teenage audiences in the UK.

0:58:43 > 0:58:44We got Jimmy Reed over.

0:58:44 > 0:58:48And Jimmy did it for, you know, he couldn't believe what he got,

0:58:48 > 0:58:51he told us he was working for 30 the night before in New York,

0:58:51 > 0:58:56and I think we got him 1,000 and a bottle of Jack Daniels under his stool.

0:58:56 > 0:58:58And he said to me,

0:58:58 > 0:59:02"There's more young pussy than you can shake a stick at in front of me,

0:59:02 > 0:59:04"like I died and gone to heaven."

0:59:04 > 0:59:06And he'd played to 25 people the night before.

0:59:06 > 0:59:10Come over here and they were playing at the Albert Hall, you know.

0:59:12 > 0:59:152,500 people, you know, sitting down,

0:59:15 > 0:59:18lovin' them and knowing all the songs.

0:59:18 > 0:59:20And it kind of threw them, I think.

0:59:22 > 0:59:25Yeah, I mean, I've no doubt they all looked at each other and said,

0:59:25 > 0:59:28"Well, that's the strangest audience I've ever seen."

0:59:30 > 0:59:34A bunch of wimpy English guys with long hair, going, "Duh."

0:59:36 > 0:59:37"Well, I didn't expect to hit THEM!"

0:59:39 > 0:59:40You know, any port in a storm!

0:59:44 > 0:59:51By 1965 British R'n'B was at high tide and blues-based bands were flooding the charts worldwide.

0:59:51 > 0:59:56# I live in an apartment on the 99th floor of my block

0:59:59 > 1:00:01# And I sit at home looking out the window... #

1:00:01 > 1:00:05But these British bands now stood at the crossroads of blues and rock

1:00:05 > 1:00:07and were writing their own original material.

1:00:07 > 1:00:11# Then in flies a guy who's all dressed up just like a Union Jack... #

1:00:11 > 1:00:15Which may have been inspired by the blues, but it wasn't quite the blues any more.

1:00:15 > 1:00:19# And says I've won £5 if I can have his kind of detergent pack

1:00:21 > 1:00:25- # I said hey!- Hey!- You!- You! - Get off of my cloud

1:00:25 > 1:00:29- # Hey!- Hey!- You!- You! - Get off of my cloud... #

1:00:29 > 1:00:33There was a kind of frantic quality to the way that The Stones

1:00:33 > 1:00:37and The Manfreds and The Animals all did it, you know.

1:00:37 > 1:00:39Um, it was all...

1:00:41 > 1:00:43I gravitated towards The Yardbirds.

1:00:43 > 1:00:47Um, and I always used to think to myself, you know,

1:00:47 > 1:00:49"Why don't they ever play any slow songs?"

1:00:49 > 1:00:51It was always like, ding-ding-ding!

1:00:51 > 1:00:56It was necessary, creatively and as human beings, my God, you know,

1:00:56 > 1:01:01to do something for ourselves, so we did start to experiment

1:01:01 > 1:01:05and sort of move away a little bit from the blues format.

1:01:05 > 1:01:08You had to go somewhere else, we had to make our own music.

1:01:08 > 1:01:10# I never see

1:01:12 > 1:01:14# The people I know

1:01:15 > 1:01:17# In the bright light of day

1:01:19 > 1:01:21# So how can I say

1:01:22 > 1:01:24# That you're any friend of mine... #

1:01:24 > 1:01:27We got to a point where we'd done that for three or four years.

1:01:27 > 1:01:29# I'm feelin' fine... #

1:01:29 > 1:01:30And if we hadn't of found a way

1:01:30 > 1:01:33to sort of break out of that

1:01:33 > 1:01:35we would have, probably, stopped being a band.

1:01:39 > 1:01:41# Midnight, midnight till six

1:01:41 > 1:01:43# Midnight, midnight till six... #

1:01:47 > 1:01:52The Yardbirds now boasted a serious young blues guitarist who quickly established his own fan base.

1:01:52 > 1:01:57He soon became known simply, to those who idolised him, as God.

1:01:57 > 1:01:59Eric Clapton.

1:02:00 > 1:02:02I mean, they named him God.

1:02:02 > 1:02:04He never woke up and said, "I'm gonna be God."

1:02:04 > 1:02:08Although I did go out one night and scrawl it on a bridge with a piece of...

1:02:08 > 1:02:10No, I didn't, it's not true actually. I wish I had.

1:02:11 > 1:02:15# I love you baby Yes, I love you so... #

1:02:15 > 1:02:19What he brought with him was his intense love and appreciation

1:02:19 > 1:02:22for this music that only he was just discovering.

1:02:22 > 1:02:26And I realised later that he identified himself with these guys,

1:02:26 > 1:02:29these suffering guys, you know, Robert Johnson.

1:02:29 > 1:02:32And that, in a way, he was living the blues, actually,

1:02:32 > 1:02:34more than I was living the blues, you know.

1:02:35 > 1:02:38We did gel for a very intense, short period of time

1:02:38 > 1:02:42and we even shared a bedroom together, would you believe.

1:02:42 > 1:02:44And we were very close.

1:02:44 > 1:02:47Eric did have these very intense relationships with people.

1:02:54 > 1:02:58For Your Love was The Yardbirds musical prophecy of the shape of things to come.

1:02:58 > 1:02:59# For your love... #

1:03:00 > 1:03:04But Clapton wasn't interested in the imminent psychedelic future.

1:03:04 > 1:03:05At least, not yet.

1:03:05 > 1:03:07For him, the blues, pure and simple,

1:03:07 > 1:03:10had still to enjoy its day in Britain.

1:03:10 > 1:03:13For Your Love was "too commercial, man."

1:03:13 > 1:03:14# For your love... #

1:03:14 > 1:03:17I don't know if there was an electricity

1:03:17 > 1:03:20in that studio afterwards that, you know, was tangible.

1:03:20 > 1:03:23It was gonna do something, it was unique.

1:03:23 > 1:03:27And he played on the middle section

1:03:27 > 1:03:28and then, basically, quit.

1:03:31 > 1:03:34I think that was a, sort of, a step too far for him.

1:03:34 > 1:03:38It was too, not the route he wanted to go to.

1:03:38 > 1:03:40He had his blinkers on at that point.

1:03:40 > 1:03:47Eric was the first person who saw that what really differentiated

1:03:47 > 1:03:51the blues that we were trying to play from the real thing

1:03:51 > 1:03:56was they just slipped into it because it was natural.

1:03:56 > 1:03:59And if you could make the music feel natural to yourself,

1:03:59 > 1:04:03that's the key to the whole of Eric Clapton's music.

1:04:03 > 1:04:07If you could make the music feel natural, you were away.

1:04:11 > 1:04:14Naturally enough, Clapton joined a real blues band.

1:04:14 > 1:04:19Produced by Mike Vernon, the album, John Mayall's Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton,

1:04:19 > 1:04:20known as The Beano Album,

1:04:20 > 1:04:24announced the arrival of the second, more hardcore British blues boom.

1:04:27 > 1:04:31I had a very hard time getting to grips with the difference

1:04:31 > 1:04:35between the way I remember him when he played with The Yardbirds,

1:04:35 > 1:04:39and the way he was when he first stepped out on a stage with John Mayall.

1:04:39 > 1:04:41It was like a completely different guitarist.

1:04:46 > 1:04:49He must have got a serious dose of Freddie King.

1:04:49 > 1:04:53Really serious dose, you know, because those, the Freddie King records

1:04:53 > 1:04:57were sort of somewhere in between and Eric took it a bit further.

1:04:57 > 1:05:00Eric had told me, he said,

1:05:00 > 1:05:05"I'm gonna play loud, I'm gonna play the way I do live and I don't want anybody telling me I gotta turn down.

1:05:05 > 1:05:07"I don't want that to happen."

1:05:07 > 1:05:09And I said to him, "I promise you it won't happen."

1:05:13 > 1:05:18Soon as Eric plugged in and turned on, everything went to buggery completely.

1:05:18 > 1:05:20All the drums were like, "Pwwww!"

1:05:20 > 1:05:23But God works in mysterious ways.

1:05:23 > 1:05:27Yeah, I just really play blues all the time, you know.

1:05:27 > 1:05:30Having briefly blessed John Mayall's Blues Breakers,

1:05:30 > 1:05:32Clapton was spirited away again,

1:05:32 > 1:05:36this time by two young jazz tyros, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce,

1:05:36 > 1:05:39to complete the holy trinity that was Cream.

1:05:43 > 1:05:45Eric and myself went to Ginger's house,

1:05:45 > 1:05:48I think he was the only one who actually had a house,

1:05:48 > 1:05:54in Neasden, and we set up and, eh,

1:05:54 > 1:05:57we started to play and it was just magical.

1:05:57 > 1:05:58# I'm so glad

1:05:58 > 1:06:04# I'm so glad, I'm glad I'm glad, I'm glad... #

1:06:04 > 1:06:07So...that's where the blues was born, folks.

1:06:10 > 1:06:17We had no idea what we were going to play, but luckily, Eric, being really into the blues,

1:06:17 > 1:06:23had some rather lesser-known esoteric kind of people like Skip James

1:06:23 > 1:06:27and some of the lesser known Robert Johnson things,

1:06:27 > 1:06:30which was really good for us to be able to do.

1:06:41 > 1:06:48My idea in the Cream days was to take the blues, but respectfully,

1:06:48 > 1:06:53and then use it to kind of create a new kind of British thing.

1:06:54 > 1:06:58# They might fill spoons full of water

1:06:59 > 1:07:02# They might fill spoons full of tea

1:07:05 > 1:07:09# Just a little spoon of your precious love

1:07:10 > 1:07:14# Saved you from another man... #

1:07:20 > 1:07:24Cream appeared just as things went all weird and druggy.

1:07:24 > 1:07:26First with the coming of psychedelia,

1:07:26 > 1:07:28swiftly followed by the strange sounds

1:07:28 > 1:07:31that announced the arrival of progressive rock,

1:07:31 > 1:07:35under the flagship of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's album.

1:07:35 > 1:07:38Even The Rolling Stones were wrong footed.

1:07:40 > 1:07:43When we went the wrong way with Satanic Majesties,

1:07:43 > 1:07:45trying to copy The Beatles, I suppose, they were,

1:07:45 > 1:07:48um, with the cover and everything,

1:07:48 > 1:07:53we had to get back to our roots when we did Beggars Banquet in '68.

1:07:53 > 1:07:54It was much more bluesy.

1:07:54 > 1:07:59# 2,000 light years from home... #

1:07:59 > 1:08:03But the blues were more alive than ever in the mind of guitarist Peter Green.

1:08:03 > 1:08:07Having replaced Clapton in John Mayall's Blues Breakers,

1:08:07 > 1:08:11he too was now ready to take his own no-frills version of the blues on the road.

1:08:12 > 1:08:16While many British groups were busy copying The Beatles,

1:08:16 > 1:08:20abandoning live performance altogether in favour of complex studio recordings,

1:08:20 > 1:08:25Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac stepped on stage and rocked like it was 1963.

1:08:27 > 1:08:33I wasn't exactly Buddy Rich. I did my best to play, I wanted to play.

1:08:33 > 1:08:37I happened to meet people who turned me on to blues music.

1:08:37 > 1:08:45And what I did, as a player, really was a good fit

1:08:45 > 1:08:49because it was less is more and I couldn't do more anyhow.

1:08:59 > 1:09:04They were the best band on the road at that period of time, live.

1:09:04 > 1:09:08The atmosphere was absolutely, I mean, you know, my God,

1:09:08 > 1:09:10it was electric.

1:09:10 > 1:09:13We needed an album. We needed it fast and the band were so popular

1:09:13 > 1:09:16they were out there working eight days a week.

1:09:16 > 1:09:18# I got a girl and she just won't be true... #

1:09:18 > 1:09:20We had to put something out.

1:09:20 > 1:09:23# I got a girl and she just won't be true

1:09:24 > 1:09:27# Won't let me do the one good thing I tell her to. #

1:09:29 > 1:09:32I did two or three tracks at Decca

1:09:32 > 1:09:35with Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood

1:09:35 > 1:09:37and, actually, Bob Brunning playing bass,

1:09:37 > 1:09:42as demos for a future Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac band.

1:09:42 > 1:09:45- 'We got the sound now, lads. - Good.- Take two.'

1:09:45 > 1:09:50Mike Vernon absolutely was the boffin of boffins.

1:09:50 > 1:09:55He was so passionate about, like, if he had something to play you,

1:09:55 > 1:09:57I mean, this is like, "No, no, no, you gotta come round,"

1:09:57 > 1:10:00and "duh-duh-duh", like stuttering over his words.

1:10:00 > 1:10:03"It's just unbelievable, Mick, it's just unbelievable,

1:10:03 > 1:10:06"the horn section's coming in," and this and that.

1:10:08 > 1:10:12The adage about being in the right place at the right time is fine,

1:10:12 > 1:10:16but you have to be the right person in the right place at the right time.

1:10:16 > 1:10:19'Shake Your Moneymaker, take one!'

1:10:20 > 1:10:22He wasn't looking for perfection.

1:10:22 > 1:10:24'Remake, take one.'

1:10:24 > 1:10:27But he was looking for, you know, the shit, the real deal.

1:10:27 > 1:10:30- 'Take five!' - And he knew what it was.

1:10:31 > 1:10:35It was all about real stuff.

1:10:35 > 1:10:38'Can you hear it? It's fuzzy and keeps cutting out.'

1:10:38 > 1:10:40On the production side at that period of time,

1:10:40 > 1:10:44I probably was the right person, I actually was probably the only person.

1:10:44 > 1:10:46There wasn't, to the best of my knowledge,

1:10:46 > 1:10:49not anybody else that was as active as I was,

1:10:49 > 1:10:51nor as committed as I was.

1:11:00 > 1:11:04Fleetwood Mac's first album, released at the beginning of 1968,

1:11:04 > 1:11:06was an international hit.

1:11:06 > 1:11:09The Dog And Dustbin album, it's commonly known as.

1:11:09 > 1:11:12Yes, Peter Green's dog.

1:11:12 > 1:11:15I think, or was it Mike Vernon's? That's trivial.

1:11:15 > 1:11:20But the Fleetwood Mac album outsold The Beatles and The Stones put together

1:11:20 > 1:11:22for the first few months.

1:11:22 > 1:11:24It was an extraordinary success.

1:11:24 > 1:11:26And nobody could understand it,

1:11:26 > 1:11:30here was this little blues band not playing very fashionable music.

1:11:30 > 1:11:34Cos that album was, for sure, a blues album.

1:11:34 > 1:11:37And people loved it

1:11:37 > 1:11:42and most of them didn't know from whence it really came, I'm sure.

1:11:47 > 1:11:49Peter Green's a great, great guitar player.

1:11:49 > 1:11:56At that time, I think he'd gone beyond Clapton in terms of his tasteful playing.

1:11:58 > 1:12:01There's something about the formula.

1:12:01 > 1:12:05You know, and it's been twisted and bent and everything else.

1:12:11 > 1:12:13Like the R'n'B groups before them,

1:12:13 > 1:12:17some of this second wave of more hard-boiled blues players

1:12:17 > 1:12:21also looked beyond a mere 12 bars in their quest for originality

1:12:21 > 1:12:23and a blues form more relevant to '60s Britain.

1:12:25 > 1:12:28I was only interested in writing new material.

1:12:28 > 1:12:30I've always wanted to be a composer.

1:12:30 > 1:12:35To me, Cream was like a vehicle for my composing.

1:12:43 > 1:12:46# Hey now, baby

1:12:47 > 1:12:50# Get into my big black car... #

1:12:50 > 1:12:53It actually came from the Profumo scandal.

1:12:53 > 1:12:55You know, you got this idea of an old politician,

1:12:55 > 1:13:01an older politician, in a limo starting to be very, very turned on

1:13:01 > 1:13:02by the young girls of the '60s,

1:13:02 > 1:13:06you know, with the very short skirts.

1:13:06 > 1:13:08And wanting a piece of the action.

1:13:09 > 1:13:12# I wanna just show you

1:13:12 > 1:13:15# What my politics are... #

1:13:18 > 1:13:20There's a line in it which I always think about,

1:13:20 > 1:13:23"I don't care if you are a Russian spy,

1:13:23 > 1:13:27"what I want from you is your red velvet thigh next to mine."

1:13:27 > 1:13:31Some of the funniest things you'll ever hear are in the blues.

1:13:37 > 1:13:42The success of what was becoming blues rock in Britain in 1968

1:13:42 > 1:13:44meant that even emerging, progressive bands

1:13:44 > 1:13:47could sail into the album charts under the blues flag.

1:13:49 > 1:13:55Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson factored an unusual choice of instrument into the blues equation.

1:13:57 > 1:14:00It was almost like, well, Eric doesn't play the flute.

1:14:00 > 1:14:03It was about being a bigger fish in a small pool -

1:14:03 > 1:14:07you could actually stand out of the crowd a little bit as a flute player

1:14:07 > 1:14:10at the Marquee Club doing the blues cos no-one else was playing it.

1:14:10 > 1:14:15But, you know, very quickly Jethro Tull was not just a blues band.

1:14:22 > 1:14:27That was Anderson's plan, but Tull's management was uneasy about the mix.

1:14:27 > 1:14:31This is just not an instrument you should be playing in a blues band.

1:14:31 > 1:14:36You should push the guitar player, Mick Abrahams, get him to stand at the front, and do more guitar,

1:14:36 > 1:14:40and let him do more of the singing. Why don't you learn to play a little rhythm piano and stand at the back?

1:14:43 > 1:14:45# Gonna lose my way tomorrow

1:14:45 > 1:14:48# Gonna give away my car

1:14:48 > 1:14:51# I'd take you along with me

1:14:51 > 1:14:54# But you would not go so far... #

1:14:54 > 1:15:00The band was formed on the basis that you need a guitar player in the band,

1:15:00 > 1:15:02that can play blues.

1:15:02 > 1:15:08Because blues is the thing, and this was purely a commercial adventure.

1:15:09 > 1:15:13The blues was the essential part, then, of Jethro Tull.

1:15:17 > 1:15:24If you can play one note in the 12-bar solo, and make somebody cry or laugh or...

1:15:24 > 1:15:28all the lovely emotions that are associated with music,

1:15:28 > 1:15:32that's truly, to me, the blues.

1:15:32 > 1:15:33It's almost like a prayer.

1:15:33 > 1:15:37I had never any desire to be a third-rate copyist

1:15:37 > 1:15:43of a music form that I had such respect for then, and do today.

1:15:43 > 1:15:49One of the great blues pieces of all time, and not terribly well known, is JB Lenoir's Alabama Blues.

1:15:49 > 1:15:53And he's singing about race riots. Well, for me to sing that song would be patently absurd.

1:15:53 > 1:15:55Because it is so deeply personal.

1:15:55 > 1:15:58Ian had his own plan. Ian had his own plan for music.

1:15:58 > 1:16:04So, my influence... It was like there were two Jethro Tulls.

1:16:06 > 1:16:11After a battle of guitar versus flute, and blues rock versus progressive rock,

1:16:11 > 1:16:14Mick Abrahams left Jethro Tull.

1:16:14 > 1:16:16Just as they hit the big time.

1:16:16 > 1:16:18How's that?

1:16:18 > 1:16:24It's not that I'm, you know, so snobby, or...

1:16:24 > 1:16:31demanding some kind of intellectual outlet beyond this simple and vital music form...

1:16:31 > 1:16:34Actually, it is both of those things!

1:16:40 > 1:16:46It was this "simple and vital music form" that bagged a bunch of trophies for British blues artists

1:16:46 > 1:16:48at the Melody Maker Awards in 1969.

1:16:51 > 1:16:57Some thought the blues had become a license to print money and guarantee international fame.

1:16:59 > 1:17:04There is, of course the element of - can blue men sing the whites?

1:17:04 > 1:17:08You know, people start off trying to copy people that they love,

1:17:08 > 1:17:13and then, the good thing is if you recognise why you love them,

1:17:13 > 1:17:17and try to pinpoint all the things that are great about those people,

1:17:17 > 1:17:23and then incorporate it into your own personality, so it comes out being original.

1:17:24 > 1:17:27# Quit hangin' around in bars

1:17:27 > 1:17:30# Sold off all my green guitars

1:17:30 > 1:17:33# Even got half the money back

1:17:33 > 1:17:37# On my BMW car

1:17:37 > 1:17:39# But you still... #

1:17:39 > 1:17:41The essence of the blues is...

1:17:41 > 1:17:47an expression of a person's... social and spiritual condition.

1:17:47 > 1:17:50# But I'm still tryin' to flag a ride... #

1:17:50 > 1:17:54Eventually, try and recognise it in yourself,

1:17:54 > 1:17:58and if it comes out sounding like whitey playing the blues,

1:17:58 > 1:18:03as long as it's got that recognition, I think that it works.

1:18:03 > 1:18:08# But I ain't getting no replies. #

1:18:08 > 1:18:11And it WAS working.

1:18:11 > 1:18:14Another day, another blues group success.

1:18:14 > 1:18:18This was the age of Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After and Chicken Shack.

1:18:18 > 1:18:22Savoy Brown, The Groundhogs and Taste.

1:18:22 > 1:18:27They provided the soundtrack to arguments about allegiance to the blues versus originality,

1:18:27 > 1:18:30authenticity versus theft.

1:18:30 > 1:18:33The accompaniment to white middle-class guilt.

1:18:38 > 1:18:40# I got the Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack

1:18:40 > 1:18:44# John Mayall can't fail blues

1:18:44 > 1:18:47# I got the Jethro Tull Belly full

1:18:47 > 1:18:52# Savoy Brown, Reach-me-down blues

1:18:52 > 1:18:54# I got the Fleetwood Mac Chicken Shack

1:18:54 > 1:18:59# John Mayall can't fail blues

1:18:59 > 1:19:03# From the deep, deep south Of the river Thames

1:19:03 > 1:19:06# A bottleneck guitar is the latest trend

1:19:06 > 1:19:09# I'm gonna earn more money than I can spend

1:19:09 > 1:19:10# I got the blues... #

1:19:14 > 1:19:18# I've been waiting so long

1:19:18 > 1:19:22# To be where I'm going

1:19:22 > 1:19:29# In the sunshine of your love... #

1:19:31 > 1:19:33Under the steam created by Cream,

1:19:33 > 1:19:38British blues was now a runaway train, pulling rock, jazz and psychedelia along with it.

1:19:41 > 1:19:46When we were actually out-grossing everybody else put together,

1:19:46 > 1:19:51we were just jamming. I always like to say improvising, cos it sounds better.

1:19:54 > 1:19:57Eric Clapton joined up with two jazz players,

1:19:57 > 1:20:00you know, so, naturally jazz players improvise,

1:20:00 > 1:20:03and they stretch things out, you know.

1:20:03 > 1:20:06A ten minute number is kind of normal.

1:20:06 > 1:20:10So, Eric learned a lot about improvisation,

1:20:10 > 1:20:14and taking it to new areas, taking his guitar to new places,

1:20:14 > 1:20:20as a result of him working in tandem with two of Britain's greatest jazz players.

1:20:20 > 1:20:24Like John Mayall always tried to reconstruct

1:20:24 > 1:20:28a sort of a Chicago blues sound, note for note, basically,

1:20:28 > 1:20:33he's a kind of trad jazz version of the blues.

1:20:33 > 1:20:38What we were trying to do, was use the language of the blues

1:20:38 > 1:20:43to create a new kind of unique and original and personal music.

1:20:43 > 1:20:46Nothing to do with Chicago, or the Delta,

1:20:46 > 1:20:51except that's where the inspiration and the actual language comes from.

1:20:57 > 1:21:01British blues had arrived at another crossroads,

1:21:01 > 1:21:05one that now signposted hard rock, progressive rock and jazz rock.

1:21:05 > 1:21:11At the height of their popularity, Cream decided to call it a day and go their separate ways.

1:21:11 > 1:21:16They said goodbye at the Royal Albert Hall on the 26th November 1968.

1:21:17 > 1:21:21The devil expected payment for all the adulation

1:21:21 > 1:21:24and unforeseen international success.

1:21:29 > 1:21:33Fame and fortune also proved too much for guitarist Peter Green.

1:21:33 > 1:21:40Down at his crossroads, he met LSD, abandoned the blues, and departed Fleetwood Mac.

1:21:42 > 1:21:46But not before telling it like it was, for him.

1:21:47 > 1:21:52# Shall I tell you about my life?

1:21:52 > 1:21:58# They say I'm a man of the world

1:21:58 > 1:22:03# I've flown across every tide

1:22:03 > 1:22:08# I've seen lots of pretty girls... #

1:22:08 > 1:22:12Peter's voice was as important as his guitar playing.

1:22:12 > 1:22:16And... He could break your heart.

1:22:16 > 1:22:21# I guess I've got everything I need... #

1:22:21 > 1:22:27We just didn't realise, because he was sort of a happy guy.

1:22:27 > 1:22:31And yet, you listen to the words, like, Man Of The World... You know.

1:22:31 > 1:22:38# But I just wish that I had never been born... #

1:22:38 > 1:22:44He was way more sensitive than one could possibly have known.

1:22:44 > 1:22:50The pain that we found out he was going through,

1:22:50 > 1:22:55was put into a lot of the stuff that he did in those three years.

1:23:02 > 1:23:04In truth, when Peter left,

1:23:04 > 1:23:11we had departed from being a pure blues based band.

1:23:11 > 1:23:17But we departed with... the lessons learned.

1:23:20 > 1:23:24But some British blues bands didn't attend lessons.

1:23:28 > 1:23:32They were too busy frantically chasing gymslips.

1:23:36 > 1:23:38# Good morning, little school girl

1:23:41 > 1:23:44# Can I go home, home with you...? #

1:23:47 > 1:23:50You don't, as you develop your musical expertise,

1:23:50 > 1:23:56start tuning out, you know, music that looks blacker on the page with a lot of notes, blah-blah-blah-blah,

1:23:56 > 1:24:01it's still to remember those really great lessons taught to us by the likes of BB King,

1:24:01 > 1:24:02you know, less is more.

1:24:09 > 1:24:13Do-de-do-de-do-de-do, they think that's blues.

1:24:13 > 1:24:19do-de-do-de-do-de-doo-doo-doo, oh de-de. You know, diddly-diddly-diddly-do.

1:24:19 > 1:24:24It's not blues, really. Blues is doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, diddle-uh-duh.

1:24:24 > 1:24:27You know, "I lost my baby...

1:24:27 > 1:24:29"Where am I gonna live?"

1:24:29 > 1:24:34It's more heart-felt, it isn't bash it out, um...

1:24:34 > 1:24:40as loud as you can, and play your lead guitar as fast as you can with as many notes.

1:24:40 > 1:24:42That's jerking off, for me.

1:24:42 > 1:24:43And I know a lot of those cats

1:24:43 > 1:24:48and I realise that a lot of them didn't really wanna go that way.

1:24:48 > 1:24:53But the business was growing and growing and growing.

1:24:53 > 1:24:59And the money... And managements were coming in and the...

1:24:59 > 1:25:02You know? I mean, what are you gonna do in this world? You know?

1:25:02 > 1:25:07Why did you start it, how do you wanna finish it?

1:25:07 > 1:25:09Now that's the blues.

1:25:10 > 1:25:13'Lead guitar, Jimmy Paige!'

1:25:18 > 1:25:25Finishing it, or starting it all over again, fell to a pheromone-fuelled new fab four.

1:25:25 > 1:25:29Zeppelin got a lot of criticism early on for, sort of,

1:25:29 > 1:25:32thieving things from Willie Dixon, or whatever,

1:25:32 > 1:25:35but, you know, everybody did.

1:25:43 > 1:25:47They, like the very best of British bands of that era, took it to a new place.

1:25:53 > 1:25:55That place was the stadium,

1:25:55 > 1:25:59where, in the '70s, British blues was subsumed in the heady mix.

1:26:02 > 1:26:04# How many more times?

1:26:06 > 1:26:10# Treat me the way that you wanna do... #

1:26:15 > 1:26:19# I don't mean the USA... #

1:26:19 > 1:26:25But what about the black American blues artists who personally brought their music to these shores

1:26:25 > 1:26:29and lodged it firmly in the hearts of British audiences and musicians?

1:26:29 > 1:26:33Champion Jack Dupree never went back.

1:26:33 > 1:26:36He settled in Halifax and married a Yorkshire girl.

1:26:39 > 1:26:42Since I come into England

1:26:42 > 1:26:47and I found England was a heavenly place for me,

1:26:47 > 1:26:51I don't care who else finds it difficult,

1:26:51 > 1:26:53but to me it's heaven.

1:26:54 > 1:26:59When you leave from slavery and go into a place where you're free...

1:26:59 > 1:27:03I couldn't go back there. Because anybody spit on me, I'd kill them.

1:27:06 > 1:27:10Everybody here know me, including the police.

1:27:10 > 1:27:13So, I'm known by everybody and this is home for me.

1:27:17 > 1:27:22When we began playing the blues in England in the early '60s,

1:27:22 > 1:27:26we were trying to recreate something we heard on record.

1:27:27 > 1:27:30That's the best you can do. But I would say that,

1:27:30 > 1:27:34whether we were authentic or not, we all came to it with great love.

1:27:36 > 1:27:39It's a living and breathing expression

1:27:39 > 1:27:43of people's suffering and desire.

1:27:43 > 1:27:49And that's what the blues is. It's not the kind of music that the Brits nicked and sold back to America,

1:27:49 > 1:27:51although that happened.

1:27:51 > 1:27:55It's a woman, it's a drum,

1:27:55 > 1:27:57it's everything like that.

1:27:57 > 1:28:04It's much more important than something you can even sell or put a label on.

1:28:04 > 1:28:07Much more. It's humanity itself.

1:28:09 > 1:28:13As to whether we can ever begin to emulate

1:28:13 > 1:28:17the people who really began it, the Robert Johnsons,

1:28:17 > 1:28:21the Howlin' Wolfs, the Muddy Waters. No!

1:28:21 > 1:28:24# Nobody saw me cryin'

1:28:26 > 1:28:29# Nobody knows the way I feel

1:28:33 > 1:28:35# Nobody saw me cryin'

1:28:37 > 1:28:40# Nobody knows the way I feel

1:28:43 > 1:28:46# Yeah, the way I love the woman

1:28:46 > 1:28:49# It's bound to get me killed. #

1:28:49 > 1:28:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

1:28:51 > 1:28:55E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk