I came across a 1978 MM interview with British blues godfather Alexis Korner recently and thought this quote might kick off an interesting discussion…
AK: ‘You have to keep moving and good music is always fluid music. that’s what I objected to in the Blues Boom (68-69). I objected to the 12-bars and five BB King licks as being the badge of the bluesman. That’s why I left the scene – there was far more to it than that. What about field hollers, work songs, gospel? It wasn’t down to 12 bars and three chords, and that’s why I split in 68. It had become a very bad joke and I didn’t want to be part of that movement I’d sooner play with jazz musicians who have a blues feel.’
So, @Johnny_Concheroo – what do say? Do you concede that, one or two original talents aside, a huge splodge of the British blues boom were meat & potatoes three-chord merchants with five or six borrowed licks? Or was Alexis missing something that ‘the kids’ were getting?
Attached is a great clip from German TV in 1978, featuring Alexis doing his kind of blues, then The Pirates, Dr Feelgood and Chicken Shack (in their little-known disco phase) doing theirs.
Lawks a mercy, a few comments dissing the mellifluous tone (and shitey singing) of the WLOL(ITOTPV)HM and the site comes crashing down. How would AKs manic laughter sound? Hmm, thought so……….
I can’t remember what I wrote on this thread yesterday, but I think I was in full agreement with Alexis. The Brit blues boom was a complete waste of everyone’s time, especially that so-called “Beano Album” all copies of which should be recalled and melted down into a series of attractive ashtrays and plantpots.
I think that was it, anyway.
Yes, I think it was something like that… and yet, in the back of my mind there’s a nagging feeling…
but I do recall @Colin-H making an exception for the dexterity and taste of Ronnie Wood’s playing, especially in late period Stones.
Errrrrrrrrrrrr………
Yes, I have a tape recording of that and a signed affidavit
I think this is EXACTLY the sort of thing Alexis had a problem with:
Oh, that’s not so bad. I have a soft spot for Stan Webb’s guitar antics.
Christine Perfect looks like she’s auditioning for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie there.
But you can see AK’s point, surely – it’s second-hand, second-rate BB King.
Yes, like Kim Simmons in Savoy Brown and most of the others, Stan’s playing was OK in a rock context, but it just didn’t have the authenticity of Clapton, Green, Kossoff and Beck.
And these guys aren’t far behind, I suspect:
Now we’re talking. The great Victor Brox on vocals/keyboards there and John Morshead playing an unfeasibly rare blonde Gibson 335.
Bassist Alex Dmochowski would go on to work with John Mayall and Zappa.
Aynsley Dunbar would also play with Zappa during the 200 Motels era.
The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation’s (so named as a dig at John Mayall after he fired Dunbar) first self-penned single Warning was covered by Black Sabbath on their debut album.
Oh, come on JC – the very definition of meat and potatoes, surely?
Yes, perhaps, but it sums up the era perfectly for me. I grew up with these bands so it’s hard to get away from that.
And it was an all-star band which made it interesting.
Here it is:
Note the Blue Horizon label used a curious CBS hybrid label for the first two singles (the other one being Fleetwood Mac’s Believe My Time Ain’t Long/Rambling Pony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l3c-42huW0
Couldn’t help thinking “meat and potatoes” every time they zoomed in on the guitarists crotch.
I’m ok with the clip. Certainly much better than Chicken shack.Singer sings well in the blues idiom and the guitaring has plenty of bite.
Just because they are not on that top shelf of guitar prodigies doesnt make it rubbish.
What’s your position on this band?
I think BT & the Aztecs are great, JW – surely you knew that? As the continuity guy says at the end ‘That’s rock’n’roll – they don’t make ’em like that any more’. Indeed not.
However, I prefer the scuzzy, Wild West pioneering Aztecs of 1969-74 to the cleaned up Gil’s-baseball-hat-weating 90s/00s reunion version.
Let’s rock!
There’s enough meat and potatoes in that one clip alone to solve world hunger for the next 50 years!
I suppose it’s built strongly and delivered in such a way to match the no nonsense Aussie approach to, well, just about everything, but it’s sure lacking in finesse.
Those ham-fisted, humourless romps through Rock Me Baby and C.C.Rider just about sum up Thorpe’s entire career after he stopped trying to copy the Beatles.
Subtle as a flying mallet and totally devoid of charm.
Oh, I don’t know… It’s all about context, I suppose. To me those couple of years in the early 70s up to Sunbury (in the clip) had huge energy and clearly tapped into a mass underground mood in Oz at the time – nationalist (small N) as much as musical, with Oz finally creating its own rock music on a level playing field with visiting Brits and Americans.
But I’ll agree that playing CC Rider endlessly in post early 70s reunions would have been purely a nostalgia thing. Back in 1972 it looked like it was primal, and vital.
I wonder what was going on with the people beating their blankets on the ground? Some quaint Aussie custom perhaps, like the guy bashing beer cans on the fence double-handed at the start.
It was all too frenetic for me and lacked any hint of swing. Thorpey’s outfit – denim shirt tucked into crotch-hugging loon pants – left a lot to be desired, too.
But JC, coming from all those years hanging around Swinging London and seeing future legends every 5 minutes down at the Marquee or wherever, your perspective would have been totally different to that of natives in Oz, who might get a flying visit from a tiny proportion of such happening international artistes once in a blue moon (if that) prior to the mid 70s.
Yes, I suppose so (he said conceitedly)
While trawling for that Thorpey clip I came across this. Billy Thorpe playing with Mick Fleetwood’s Zoo at the Village Green a sticky carpet beer barn in the suburbs of Melbourne. Imagine going from Peter Green to Billy Thorpe’s lumpen solos.
It’s one unholy racket but, if inclined, check out the footage at around 2.40 . It’s obviously typically Thorpey deafening and there is someone who could be my mum at the side grooving. Most out of place thing I’ve ever seen.
Having thought about it for a bit during the outage (which I like to pronounce in the French manner) I’m inclined to cut these herberts a bit of slack. They’re all blokes (with the odd blokess) who got together and started a group to play music which they loved and which was relatively easy to play (if badly), and to their amazement found that they could actually get paid for doing it, make records, get birds etc. At the time, as JC says, it all seemed ok, not least because you could watch these bands sweating away and imagine yourself up there doing it. (“Is there a lead guitarist in the house?”) You didn’t get that feeling with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, I can tell you.
Yes, that about sums it up Mike.
But from a historical pov I find it really interesting. Within a year or two, this music had slid into heavy rock with bands like Free morphing into Bad Company and so an entirely new genre sprang up.
Judging from the review, this new 4CD set might have more to AK’s taste:
Will you be purchasing a copy, JC – or is it too authentic? 🙂