A satirical song about the blues boom in the late sixties.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 13 Dec 2010 6:20 am

I spent a lot of time listening to bands mentioned in this song.
You better learn to play some blues son, 'cause there's gonna be a boom...The Liverpool Scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZVIEaKV4cI

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 13 Dec 2010 9:33 am

It's funny indeed. But in fact, a lot of us over here in the States discovered the electric blues route via younger white blues players like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Charlie Musselwhite, and found much (not all) of the so-called "British Blues Boom" pretty - well, I think the song covers it pretty well. Most of the people I knew who were serious about blues back then went straight to the original masters, precisely because guys like Butterfield and Bloomfield championed them, and didn't rip them off.

Then there's the acoustic blues folks like Dave Van Ronk and others coming from the Rev. Gary Davis, Fred MacDowell, and so on, school of blues. There actually was a serious and meaningful blues boom on in the 60s.

But let me say that lumping British players like Peter Green (of the 'real' Fleetwood Mac), and a few others, with some of the bands in that tune is, IMHO, pretty far off the mark.

Blues. Blues-rock. Not the same. IMHO.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 13 Dec 2010 10:59 am

Dave,
I think the blues revival, I mean revival not the Blues itself was inspired by the Rolling Stones, becoming a world wide success and therefore made it easier for american artists to be recognised and get record contracts. I have limited knowledge of the style I admit, but there was also an acoustic equivalent to the American artists with people like Davey Graham, Alexis Korner and others. I also believe that Michael Bloomfield or Johnny Winter were more authentic than Alvin Lee from TYA or Stan Webb from Chicken Shack. But as a sixteen year old I just admired them.
I think the song sums it up pretty well from what was going on in Europe, especially in Britain.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 13 Dec 2010 11:09 am

Yeah, I think (and I think already agreed) that the song summed that aspect of it up pretty well. My point was that in the States, guys like Butterfield, Bloomfield, and Musselwhite were at least as, if not significantly more, influential in kindling interest in real blues than the British Blues Boom. My take from growing up with this in the late 60s from Boston, and I admit to being a little weary of the oft-repeated thesis that the British Invasion blues guys 'saved' the blues.

FWIW - I liked the Yardbirds, Stones, Zep, TYA, Savoy Brown, and so on. It was fun music. And then there were guys like Green who could go toe-to-toe with any of the young American blues players.

Glenn Suchan · Post by **Glenn Suchan** » 13 Dec 2010 11:31 am

Dave Mudgett wrote:It's funny indeed. But in fact, a lot of us over here in the States discovered the electric blues route via younger white blues players like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Charlie Musselwhite, and found much (not all) of the so-called "British Blues Boom" pretty - well, I think the song covers it pretty well. Most of the people I knew who were serious about blues back then went straight to the original masters, precisely because guys like Butterfield and Bloomfield championed them, and didn't rip them off.

But let me say that lumping British players like Peter Green (of the 'real' Fleetwood Mac), and a few others, with some of the bands in that tune is, IMHO, pretty far off the mark.

Blues. Blues-rock. Not the same. IMHO.

Dave, I didn't hear many bands mentioned. Just a lot of (sorry) attempts at "aping" certain bluesrock super bands. My take on the song is The Liverpool Scene was expressing 'sour grapes' over not being one of the lucky bands they were eluding to.

Before I tear into my feelings about the vid, Dave, since you mentioned US folk blues artists, you might enjoy this English folk blues artist, whom was virtually unknown in the US. The late Joann Kelly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gsQXvZzNNY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-w_0hdZuQ

Or how 'bout the late Duster Bennet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynSs81dBxwE

The rest of this rant is directed at the musicians of The Liverpool Scene, where ever they may be.

The bands I heard referenced to were John Mayall (The Liverpool Scene couldn't carry his harmonica case when it comes to championing American blues artists), Chicken Shack (a true blues/R&B purist band), and Savoy Brown (another purist band). Musically, none of the mentioned artists played/recorded anything as poorly as the 'copying' done by The Liverpool Scene. And none were superstars raking in 7-figure cash.

I'm sorry, this isn't 'cashing-in on a blues boom':
Chicken Shack (Stan Webb - guitar and vocal; Christine Perfect - keyboards, vocals):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkqXKFiStU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NKJBiTTB3A

Savoy Brown (Kim Simmonds - guitar; Chris Youlden - vocals)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58waH0Nqpm8

John Mayall from his 1967 solo performance album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY3FweScwh4

Mayall in 1967, with a tribute to an all-but forgotten Chicago blues artist (don't get me started on any of that Martin Scorsese 'this is the blues' crap

):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNl3ZDyunBo

Regarding Butterfield, Bloomfield, et al; they did the same thing many of the British blues artists did: They heard the originals and were so inspired they wanted to play the same music. NOT become a super bluesrock band.

I'm climbin' down from my soapbox, so fire away....

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 13 Dec 2010 12:38 pm

The Liverpool Scene, where ever they may be.

Guitar player Andy Roberts was later a member of the group Plainsong along with Ian Matthews from Fairport Convention and is still active today.
Percy Jones, has the reputation to be one of the best jazz rock bass players.

Glenn Suchan · Post by **Glenn Suchan** » 13 Dec 2010 12:53 pm

Joachim Kettner wrote:
The Liverpool Scene, where ever they may be.

Guitar player Andy Roberts was later a member of the group Plainsong along with Ian Matthews from Fairport Convention and is still active today.
Percy Jones, has the reputation to be one of the best jazz rock bass players.

Joachim, maybe I'll be in luck and they'll read my remarks about The Liverpool Scene. Satire is one thing, but unwarranted bashing of legitimate artists is another.

BTW, their references to Mike Vernon are just as bad. I compare his contributions to promoting and recording authentic British blues with the accomplishments of Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 13 Dec 2010 11:18 pm

I thought the video, taken as a light-hearted jab on what I think was in fact a significant (but not universal by any means) piece of the so-called "British Blues Boom", was funny. So I guess we discover (again) that humor tends not to translate well across cultures - musical culture is a type of culture.

We all have our own tastes and perspectives on this kind of stuff, and that's the way it's gotta be. But as long as the soap box is up - has anybody noticed that most times a discussion comes up about 'blues' - on this forum or many other places - it either starts out as, or veers to, a discussion of players and bands that initially copied the true blues progenitors but ultimately brought it to a very different place, with damn little interest in the real deal?

So I'm done - nothing wrong with Savoy Brown or Chicken Shack, I listened to it myself at the time. But I never would put it remotely on the same level as, let's say, Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, the Three Kings, Magic Sam, T-Bone Walker, John Lee and Earl Hooker, Pee Wee Crayton, and hundreds if not thousands of others who are, to me, 'the real deal' in blues.

Just my take, no offense intended.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 14 Dec 2010 6:44 am

Dave, thanks for giving your opinion so openly. I also thought it was funny.
Glenn , I have to admit that I had a thought in the direction of " Some body had to tell them ". So your reaction is understandable for me, because when you are a fan of British Blues this can be be viewed as quite insulting.

Glenn Suchan · Post by **Glenn Suchan** » 14 Dec 2010 7:01 am

Joachim, Dave, my apologies for my previous, harsh comments. Obviously, I didn't enjoy the vid link in the spirit in which it was intended. I am somewhat sensitive about what is 'real' blues and what isn't. To me blues, like country, and other most forms of mainstream music has human emotion as the driving force behind it's creation and performance. It doesn't matter if you're from Indianola, Mississippi, Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, or Manchester, England. It doesn't matter what your childhood was like, or the color of your skin. Well crafted music is universal. And I took The Liverpool Scene vid as a "holier-than-thou" slam on artists who performed heartfelt blues, and who didn't jump-on-the-bandwagon to cash in on the perceived 'blues boom'.

I grew up in Chicago and was a teenager in the 60's. My own peculiar tastes in music led me to listen (almost exclusively) to Ray Charles, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Yancey, Roosevelt Sykes, and many others when my peers were listening to Jan & Dean, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. I admit, I did listen to The Animals because of their covers of music by John Lee Hooker and other blues greats, as well as how uncanny the similarity was between Eric Burdon's voice and Jimmy Witherspoon's.

At that time, my need to listen to and find new blues was fairly insatiable and bands like Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, (the 'real') Fleetwood Mac, Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation, TS McPhee's Groundhogs, Stone's Masonry, Cyril Davies and the Blues Allstars, and other British bands provided fertile ground to explore. All of these bands were true to the American, post-war, urban blues sound. They obviously had 'studied up' on their influences and learned the genre.

As for a 60's- 70's blues boom; I looked far and wide for others, my age that shared my interest in blues music. All but a few friends were passionate about their dislike for or even knew about the blues. Most were more interested in the teen pop music of the 60's.

Personally, I think the perceived 'blues boom' was a marketing ploy for record companies to nurture a small but growing interest in blues music. And like a similar marketing strategy for 'country rock', after a few years with marginal monetary returns, the marketing ended.

Thanks for reading my explanation for my previous comments. I'll read and enjoy the ensuing comments in the satirical intent of the thread.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 14 Dec 2010 7:36 am

Glenn, I don't think we're far apart in our views at all - I completely agree that the BBB (British Blues Boom) was indeed a largely manufactured marketing effort designed to sell records - it worked for a while and then fell by the wayside, and some (not all - I already said that) of that stuff just hasn't held up, IMHO. That's what makes the video funny to me - when I listen to some (again, not all) of that old stuff, that's what it sounds like, to me. Humor always relies on a germ of truth, not the whole truth. If you look at the whole truth, nothing would ever be funny - I think it's possible to view pretty much any humor directed at a class of things as insulting to those elements of the class that don't really fit it well, and no generalization works uniformly.

Out of all of this came some very good musicians who did add to the blues form. But to me, when the BBB marketing gravy train ended, most of the BBB artists either moved on to other more marketable styles or slipped into the woodwork - Green was arguably the biggest casualty of the young British musicians, Bloomfield arguably the biggest of the young Americans.

I also agree that so-called 'country rock' followed a similar model. For that matter, that is practically the very definition of a 'wave' of music - hard-rock, metal, glam-rock, punk-rock, grunge-rock, EMO, rap, whatever. Hell, the entire movie "This is Spinal Tap" took a hilarious but completely stereotypical look at metal and mined pure gold. It's funny precisely because some metal is close enough to see the absurd correspondence, not because it's all absurd - there is some great metal out there. "A Mighty Wind" did the same for folk. Everybody likes to take pot shots at classic country - hell if the Bob's Country Bunker scenes in the Blues Brothers movie weren't so damned funny, I'd be insulted myself, but it is funny, to me. Same goes for any style, IMHO. So I think any style of pop music is pretty ripe for this type of satirization. Some people will howl in laughter, and others will howl in anger. Such is the life of the satirist.

Again, my take.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 14 Dec 2010 8:54 am

Martin Stone (Stone's Masonry) is now a bookscout. (starts at 2:20.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6wtsEl_t3A

Glenn Suchan · Post by **Glenn Suchan** » 14 Dec 2010 9:24 am

Joachim, I'm gonna have to start callin' you "Hawkeye Kettner".

I think it's amazing, you were able to identify that Martin Stone as the one time founder of Stone's Masonry.

I enjoy "CBS Sunday Morning" and always record it for viewing at my leisure. I remember seeing this segment, when it was broadcast. I completely missed the connection. Possibly because it's been years since Stone's Masonry was a band and possibly because the name, Martin Stone is a common name. Also, I didn't know Martin Stone, the musician was a bibliomaniac. Thanks for the link.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 14 Dec 2010 10:02 am

Interesting. The bibliomania is similar but just a bit different from what a lot of musicians turned to - vintage musical instruments - especially guitars and amps. When I decided I wanted to spend several years playing full-time, that's what I did - run a vintage guitar shop by day (well, up at the crack of noon, anyway), play by night - 5 or 6 days/nights a week. I think this kind of thing sort of fits the personality type of many musicians, and allows one to pursue the muse without worrying about glomming onto the latest, greatest pop music wave.

But I know other musicians who have focused on old/rare books, vintage clothing, and other collectible stuff. It can really be a way of life, and not a bad one at that.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 Dec 2010 10:55 am

Well, I thought it was funny.