Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 51/Blues in the Archway Road"

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<div style="text-align:justify;">{{sc|Look&shy;ing at the post&shy;ers that lit&shy;ter the side streets}} of cent&shy;ral and sub&shy;urban {{w|London}}, one might be for&shy;given for as&shy;sum&shy;ing that the {{w|Blues}} was cre&shy;ated by a post{{h}}{{w|Al&shy;der&shy;mas&shy;ton|Aldermaston_Marches}} gen&shy;er&shy;a&shy;tion of art stu&shy;dents rather than by the af&shy;flic&shy;ted {{w|negro|African_Americans}} pop&shy;u&shy;la&shy;tion of the {{w|American|United_States}} {{w|Deep South|Deep_South}}. The post&shy;ers ad&shy;vert&shy;ise {{sc|au&shy;then&shy;tic {{w|Rhythm &rsquo;n&rsquo; blues|Rhythm_and_blues}}}} by groups which play a vari&shy;ety of music{{dash}}some {{w|Pop|Pop_music}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented, some {{w|Folk|Folk_music}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented, some {{w|Jazz}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented but largely de&shy;rived from the music of the more sen&shy;sa&shy;tional {{w|col&shy;oured|Person_of_color}} en&shy;ter&shy;tain&shy;ers of the {{w|USA|United_States}}, like {{w|Chuck Berry|Chuck_Berry}}, {{w|Bo Diddley|Bo_Diddley}}, {{w|James Brown|James_Brown}} and {{w|T-Bone Walker|T-Bone_Walker}}. Of the 2,000 or more groups work&shy;ing the mul&shy;ti&shy;tude of large and small {{w|clubs|Nightclub}}, no more than two dozen are in any way ori&shy;ginal, even in pop{{h}}music terms, and even these are root&shy;less shad&shy;ows of the sing&shy;ers on whose ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they draw. The dif&shy;fer&shy;ence be&shy;tween the blues of mod&shy;ern Amer&shy;ica and the {{qq|blues}} of mod&shy;ern {{w|United Kingdom|Britain}} is the dif&shy;fer&shy;ence be&shy;tween music which is an au&shy;then&shy;tic ra&shy;cial ex&shy;pres&shy;sion and music which is an ex&shy;pres&shy;sion of no more than a lik&shy;ing for the au&shy;then&shy;tic form.
+
<div style="text-align:justify;">{{sc|Look&shy;ing at the post&shy;ers that lit&shy;ter the side streets}} of cent&shy;ral and sub&shy;urban {{w|London}}, one might be for&shy;given for as&shy;sum&shy;ing that the {{w|Blues}} was cre&shy;ated by a post{{h}}{{w|Al&shy;der&shy;mas&shy;ton|Aldermaston_Marches|Aldermaston Marches}} gen&shy;er&shy;a&shy;tion of art stu&shy;dents rather than by the af&shy;flic&shy;ted {{w|negro|African_Americans|African Americas}} pop&shy;u&shy;la&shy;tion of the {{w|American|United_States|United States}} {{w|Deep South|Deep_South|Deep South}}. The post&shy;ers ad&shy;vert&shy;ise {{sc|au&shy;then&shy;tic {{w|Rhythm &rsquo;n&rsquo; blues|Rhythm_and_blues|Rhythm and blues}}}} by groups which play a vari&shy;ety of music—some {{w|Pop|Pop_music|Pop music}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented, some {{w|Folk|Folk_music|Folk music}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented, some {{w|Jazz}}{{h}}ori&shy;ented but largely de&shy;rived from the music of the more sen&shy;sa&shy;tional {{w|col&shy;oured|Person_of_color|Person of color}} en&shy;ter&shy;tain&shy;ers of the {{w|USA|United_States|United States}}, like {{w|Chuck Berry|Chuck_Berry|Chuck Berry}}, {{w|Bo Diddley|Bo_Diddley|Bo Diddley}}, {{w|James Brown|James_Brown|James Brown}} and {{w|T-Bone Walker|T-Bone_Walker|T-Bone Walker}}. Of the 2,000 or more groups work&shy;ing the mul&shy;ti&shy;tude of large and small {{w|clubs|Nightclub|Nightclub}}, no more than two dozen are in any way ori&shy;ginal, even in pop{{h}}music terms, and even these are root&shy;less shad&shy;ows of the sing&shy;ers on whose ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they draw. The dif&shy;fer&shy;ence be&shy;tween the blues of mod&shy;ern Amer&shy;ica and the {{qq|blues}} of mod&shy;ern {{w|Britain|United_Kingdom|United Kingdom}} is the dif&shy;fer&shy;ence be&shy;tween music which is an au&shy;then&shy;tic ra&shy;cial ex&shy;pres&shy;sion and music which is an ex&shy;pres&shy;sion of no more than a lik&shy;ing for the au&shy;then&shy;tic form.
  
{{tab}}The ori&shy;gins of {{w|British {{qq|blues}}|British_blues}} are far from clear. Their sem&shy;inal genius may have been {{w|Muddy Waters|Muddy_Waters}} who toured Britain in 1958 but it was not until March, 1962, when the har&shy;mon&shy;ica player {{w|Cyril Davies|Cyril_Davies}} and the guitar&shy;ist {{w|Alexis Korner|Alexis_Korner}} opened the first of the clubs{{dash|next door to the {{w|ABC Teashop|Aerated_Bread_Company}} off {{w|Ealing Broad&shy;way|Ealing}}}}that the {{qq|boom}} really had its be&shy;gin&shy;nings. Korner and Davies played mainly {{popup|pre-war|The United States formally joined World War II in December 1941.}} blues of the negro night clubs of urban Amer&shy;ica. Once they had their own stage the {{qq|boom}} gathered in {{w|Cent&shy;ral London|Central_London}}, at&shy;tract&shy;ing a young audi&shy;ence in re&shy;ac&shy;tion against a par&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;larly en&shy;feebled pop music{{dash}}this was the hey{{h}}day of {{w|Cliff Rich&shy;ard|Cliff_Richard}}. The Band{{dash|known as {{w|Alexis Korner{{s}} Blues In&shy;cor&shy;por&shy;ated|Alex_Korner's_Blues_Incorporated}}}}had the now fa&shy;mil&shy;iar line{{h}}up of har&shy;mon&shy;ica, gui&shy;tars and drums and if it was un&shy;ex&shy;it&shy;ing com&shy;pared with its {{w|Chicago|Chicago_blues}} par&shy;ent it had, at least, a rhythmic earthi&shy;ness and an emo&shy;tional di&shy;rect&shy;ness which had been com&shy;pletely ab&shy;sent from pop music since the de&shy;mise of {{w|rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll|Rock_and_roll}} in the late &rsquo;50s.
+
{{tab}}The ori&shy;gins of {{w|British {{qq|blues}}|British_blues|British blues}} are far from clear. Their sem&shy;inal genius may have been {{w|Muddy Waters|Muddy_Waters}} who toured Britain in 1958 but it was not until March, 1962, when the har&shy;mon&shy;ica player {{w|Cyril Davies|Cyril_Davies}} and the guitar&shy;ist {{w|Alexis Korner|Alexis_Korner}} opened the first of the clubs—next door to the {{w|ABC Teashop|Aerated_Bread_Company|Aerated Bread Company}} off {{w|Ealing Broad&shy;way|Ealing|Ealing}}—that the {{qq|boom}} really had its be&shy;gin&shy;nings. Korner and Davies played mainly {{popup|pre-war|The United States formally joined World War II in December 1941.}} blues of the negro night clubs of urban Amer&shy;ica. Once they had their own stage the {{qq|boom}} gathered in {{w|Cent&shy;ral London|Central_London|Central London}}, at&shy;tract&shy;ing a young audi&shy;ence in re&shy;ac&shy;tion against a par&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;larly en&shy;feebled pop music—this was the hey{{h}}day of {{w|Cliff Rich&shy;ard|Cliff_Richard}}. The Band—known as {{w|Alexis Korner{{s}} Blues In&shy;cor&shy;por&shy;ated|Alex_Korner's_Blues_Incorporated}}—had the now fa&shy;mil&shy;iar line{{h}}up of har&shy;mon&shy;ica, gui&shy;tars and drums and if it was un&shy;ex&shy;it&shy;ing com&shy;pared with its {{w|Chicago|Chicago_blues|Chicago blues}} par&shy;ent it had, at least, a rhythmic earthi&shy;ness and an emo&shy;tional di&shy;rect&shy;ness which had been com&shy;pletely ab&shy;sent from pop music since the de&shy;mise of {{w|rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll|Rock_and_roll|Rock and roll}} in the late &rsquo;50s.
  
{{tab}}By the end of 1962 the {{w|Beatles|The_Beatles}} had had their first small hit, ''{{w|Love Me Do|Love_Me_Do}}'', fea&shy;tur&shy;ing the ma&shy;gical com&shy;bin&shy;a&shy;tion of har&shy;mon&shy;ica, gui&shy;tars and drums, and the {{w|Roll&shy;ing Stones|The_Rolling_Stones}} were mak&shy;ing their early pub&shy;lic ap&shy;pear&shy;ances at Ealing and else&shy;where. In Janu&shy;ary, 1963 the Stones ap&shy;peared for the first time at the ''{{w|Marquee|Marquee_Club}}''. The {{w|bill|Billing_(performing_arts)}} was topped by {{p|130}}{{l|{{popup|Brian Knight|British guitarist, 1939–2001}}{{s}}|https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/dec/06/guardianobituaries}} Blues{{h}}by{{h}}six and the Stones earned &pound;2 each as the fill{{h}}in group. By March the Stones had moved on{{dash|to the fringe of pop suc&shy;cess}}and their place was taken by another group from Ealing, the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers, later to be re{{h}}named {{w|Manfred Mann|Manfred_Mann}}. By the time the Stones had their first small hit, ''{{w|Come On|Come_On_(Chuck_Berry_song)}}'', in the summer of 1963 (only enough to earn them 83rd pos&shy;i&shy;tion in the 1963 ''{{w|New Mu&shy;sical Ex&shy;press|NME}}'' {{w|Points Table|Record_chart}}, equal with {{w|Sammy Davis|Sammy_Davis_Jr.}}, {{w|Frank Sinatra|Frank_Sinatra}}, {{w|Ken Dodd|Ken_Dodd}} and Chuck Berry) r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b was freely tipped as the next pop craze.
+
{{tab}}By the end of 1962 the {{w|Beatles|The_Beatles|The Beatles}} had had their first small hit, ''{{w|Love Me Do|Love_Me_Do}}'', fea&shy;tur&shy;ing the ma&shy;gical com&shy;bin&shy;a&shy;tion of har&shy;mon&shy;ica, gui&shy;tars and drums, and the {{w|Roll&shy;ing Stones|The_Rolling_Stones|The Rolling Stones}} were mak&shy;ing their early pub&shy;lic ap&shy;pear&shy;ances at Ealing and else&shy;where. In Janu&shy;ary, 1963 the Stones ap&shy;peared for the first time at the ''{{w|Marquee|Marquee_Club|Marquee Club}}''. The {{w|bill|Billing_(performing_arts)|Billing}} was topped by {{p|130}}{{l|Brian Knight|https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/dec/06/guardianobituaries|British guitarist, 1939–2001&#010;link: obituary in The Guardian}}{{s}} Blues{{h}}by{{h}}six and the Stones earned &pound;2 each as the fill{{h}}in group. By March the Stones had moved on—to the fringe of pop suc&shy;cess—and their place was taken by another group from Ealing, the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers, later to be re{{h}}named {{w|Manfred Mann|Manfred_Mann}}. By the time the Stones had their first small hit, ''{{w|Come On|Come_On_(Chuck_Berry_song)}}'', in the summer of 1963 (only enough to earn them 83rd pos&shy;i&shy;tion in the 1963 ''{{w|New Mu&shy;sical Ex&shy;press|NME|NME}}'' {{w|Points Table|Record_chart|Record chart}}, equal with {{w|Sammy Davis|Sammy_Davis_Jr.|Sammy Davis Jr.}}, {{w|Frank Sinatra|Frank_Sinatra}}, {{w|Ken Dodd|Ken_Dodd}} and Chuck Berry) r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b was freely tipped as the next pop craze.<br />
  
{{tab}}It seems to have hap&shy;pened for much the same reason as rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll ten years earlier: a teen&shy;age re&shy;ac&shy;tion to the sickly gut&shy;less&shy;ness of ortho&shy;dox pop. Its suc&shy;cess has led to ex&shy;traordin&shy;ary re&shy;sults. The Cliff Rich&shy;ard pop image of tidy, boy{{h}}next{{h}}door {{w|Chris&shy;tian&shy;ity|Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom#Christianity}}, has been re&shy;placed by a styl&shy;ised image of rough{{h}}living{{dash}}beards, long hair, defi&shy;ant non&shy;chal&shy;ance and an in&shy;co&shy;her&shy;ent, un&shy;ar&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;lated curse against con&shy;form&shy;ity. The new image may be as un&shy;real as the old but it is a great deal more toler&shy;able. It is a clich&eacute; to ob&shy;serve that pop music is a ma&shy;jor field for the ex&shy;ploit&shy;a&shy;tion and ma&shy;nip&shy;u&shy;la&shy;tion of young people, gener&shy;at&shy;ing re&shy;spect for false values and poor stand&shy;ards, ex&shy;ploit&shy;ing dis&shy;satis&shy;fac&shy;tion to turn young people in on them&shy;selves rather than out on so&shy;ci&shy;ety, serving the func&shy;tion ascribed by {{w|Marx|Karl_Marx}} to re&shy;li&shy;gion, that of an {{qq|opi&shy;ate of the people}}. It would be un&shy;real&shy;istic to claim that r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b has altered this deeply en&shy;grained pop{{h}}cul&shy;tural pat&shy;tern but it may have dented it. Since the suc&shy;cess of the Beatles{{dash|re&shy;corded not be&shy;cause they might be made into stars but be&shy;cause they ''already were'' local stars}}teen&shy;agers have shown a gradu&shy;ally in&shy;creas&shy;ing in&shy;de&shy;pend&shy;ence of the will of re&shy;cord com&shy;pan&shy;ies. {{w|Mersey&shy;beat|Beat_music}} and r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b{{dash|or at any rate the {{w|local vari&shy;ant|British_rhythm_and_blues}} on the Amer&shy;ican theme}}were cre&shy;ated by teen&shy;agers for them&shy;selves and al&shy;though the com&shy;pan&shy;ies have ex&shy;ploited this music, they have had their urual role, that of ''cre&shy;ating'' stars, stolen from them by teen&shy;agers. This has been a tend&shy;ency rather than a de&shy;cis&shy;ive trend but it may rep&shy;res&shy;ent the first steps of teen&shy;agers to free them&shy;selves of the para&shy;sites who live off them and their en&shy;thu&shy;si&shy;asms. It is not just that the qual&shy;ity of the music is bet&shy;ter, al&shy;though I be&shy;lieve it is (com&shy;pare the Beatle{{s|r}} ''{{w|I{{m}} a Loser|I'm_a_Loser}}'' or Manfred Mann{{s}} ''{{w|I{{m}} Your King&shy;pin|The_Five_Faces_of_Manfred_Mann}}'' with {{w|Adam Faith|Adam_Faith}}{{s}} {{w|''What Do You Want''?|What_Do_You_Want?_(Adam_Faith_song)}} or Cliff Rich&shy;ard{{s}} ''{{w|The Young Ones|The_Young_Ones_(song)}}'') but that the re&shy;la&shy;tion&shy;ships be&shy;tween stars and audi&shy;ences have changed. The new stars are ''of'' their pub&shy;lic, neither pat&shy;ron&shy;ising nor stu&shy;pid. They are ir&shy;rev&shy;er&shy;ent, they smoke, they drink, they be&shy;have with a nat&shy;ur&shy;al&shy;ness which would have earned them noth&shy;ing but abuse ten years ago and they are ar&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;late spokes&shy;men for the teen&shy;age thing as well as for their music. The new stars are not held in awe ex&shy;cept by the very young. The club{{h}}goer knows that re&shy;cords are poor im&shy;it&shy;a&shy;tions of club per&shy;form&shy;ances, that re&shy;cord suc&shy;cess leads to noth&shy;ing so much as the di&shy;lu&shy;tion of a group{{s}} {{qq|sound}} in an en&shy;deav&shy;our to court gen&shy;eral pop&shy;ular&shy;ity. It is, in short, doubt&shy;ful whether the com&shy;pan&shy;ies have ever held so little sway over the {{w|avant garde|Avant-garde}} {{qq|popnik}}. Most young people listen to noth&shy;ing but pop music and within this con&shy;text the in&shy;fu&shy;sion of some blues{{h}}form into pop music is ex&shy;tremely wel&shy;come. Even in the hands of white sing&shy;ers it has in&shy;tro&shy;duced into a sadly ail&shy;ing pop cul&shy;ture some ele&shy;ments of an in&shy;fin&shy;itely richer ''folk'' cul&shy;ture {{p|131}}and some ele&shy;ments of a less cor&shy;rupted ''pop'' cul&shy;ture{{dash}}the music of Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and James Brown still ex&shy;presses some&shy;thing of the agony of negro life as well as the enorm&shy;ous sur&shy;ging vi&shy;tal&shy;ity and new op&shy;tim&shy;ism of the {{w|Northern|Northern_United_States}} {{w|ghet&shy;toes|American_ghettos}}. British blues is primar&shy;ily a {{w|dance music|Dance_music}} and if it is im&shy;pure it has, at least, an en&shy;thu&shy;si&shy;asm which is pos&shy;it&shy;ively damning to in&shy;hib&shy;i&shy;tion. In the clubs there is a new vigour.
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{{tab}}It seems to have hap&shy;pened for much the same reason as rock &rsquo;n&rsquo; roll ten years earlier: a teen&shy;age re&shy;ac&shy;tion to the sickly gut&shy;less&shy;ness of ortho&shy;dox pop. Its suc&shy;cess has led to ex&shy;traordin&shy;ary re&shy;sults. The Cliff Rich&shy;ard pop image of tidy, boy{{h}}next{{h}}door {{w|Chris&shy;tian&shy;ity|Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom#Christianity|Religion in the United Kingdom: Christianity}}, has been re&shy;placed by a styl&shy;ised image of rough{{h}}living—beards, long hair, defi&shy;ant non&shy;chal&shy;ance and an in&shy;co&shy;her&shy;ent, un&shy;ar&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;lated curse against con&shy;form&shy;ity. The new image may be as un&shy;real as the old but it is a great deal more toler&shy;able. It is a clich&eacute; to ob&shy;serve that pop music is a ma&shy;jor field for the ex&shy;ploit&shy;a&shy;tion and ma&shy;nip&shy;u&shy;la&shy;tion of young people, gener&shy;at&shy;ing re&shy;spect for false values and poor stand&shy;ards, ex&shy;ploit&shy;ing dis&shy;satis&shy;fac&shy;tion to turn young people in on them&shy;selves rather than out on so&shy;ci&shy;ety, serving the func&shy;tion ascribed by {{w|Marx|Karl_Marx|Karl Marx}} to re&shy;li&shy;gion, that of an {{qq|opi&shy;ate of the people}}. It would be un&shy;real&shy;istic to claim that r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b has altered this deeply en&shy;grained pop{{h}}cul&shy;tural pat&shy;tern but it may have dented it. Since the suc&shy;cess of the Beatles—re&shy;corded not be&shy;cause they might be made into stars but be&shy;cause they ''already were'' local stars—teen&shy;agers have shown a gradu&shy;ally in&shy;creas&shy;ing in&shy;de&shy;pend&shy;ence of the will of re&shy;cord com&shy;pan&shy;ies. {{w|Mersey&shy;beat|Beat_music|Beat music}} and r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b—or at any rate the {{w|local vari&shy;ant|British_rhythm_and_blues|British rhythm and blues}} on the Amer&shy;ican theme—were cre&shy;ated by teen&shy;agers for them&shy;selves and al&shy;though the com&shy;pan&shy;ies have ex&shy;ploited this music, they have had their urual role, that of ''cre&shy;ating'' stars, stolen from them by teen&shy;agers. This has been a tend&shy;ency rather than a de&shy;cis&shy;ive trend but it may rep&shy;res&shy;ent the first steps of teen&shy;agers to free them&shy;selves of the para&shy;sites who live off them and their en&shy;thu&shy;si&shy;asms. It is not just that the qual&shy;ity of the music is bet&shy;ter, al&shy;though I be&shy;lieve it is (com&shy;pare the Beatle{{s|r}} ''{{w|I{{m}} a Loser|I'm_a_Loser}}'' or Manfred Mann{{s}} ''{{w|I{{m}} Your King&shy;pin|The_Five_Faces_of_Manfred_Mann|The Five Faces of Manfred Mann}}'' with {{w|Adam Faith|Adam_Faith}}{{s}} {{w|''What Do You Want''?|What_Do_You_Want?_(Adam_Faith_song)|What Do You Want?}} or Cliff Rich&shy;ard{{s}} ''{{w|The Young Ones|The_Young_Ones_(song)}}'') but that the re&shy;la&shy;tion&shy;ships be&shy;tween stars and audi&shy;ences have changed. The new stars are ''of'' their pub&shy;lic, neither pat&shy;ron&shy;ising nor stu&shy;pid. They are ir&shy;rev&shy;er&shy;ent, they smoke, they drink, they be&shy;have with a nat&shy;ur&shy;al&shy;ness which would have earned them noth&shy;ing but abuse ten years ago and they are ar&shy;tic&shy;u&shy;late spokes&shy;men for the teen&shy;age thing as well as for their music. The new stars are not held in awe ex&shy;cept by the very young. The club{{h}}goer knows that re&shy;cords are poor im&shy;it&shy;a&shy;tions of club per&shy;form&shy;ances, that re&shy;cord suc&shy;cess leads to noth&shy;ing so much as the di&shy;lu&shy;tion of a group{{s}} {{qq|sound}} in an en&shy;deav&shy;our to court gen&shy;eral pop&shy;ular&shy;ity. It is, in short, doubt&shy;ful whether the com&shy;pan&shy;ies have ever held so little sway over the {{w|avant garde|Avant-garde|Avant-garde}} {{qq|popnik}}. Most young people listen to noth&shy;ing but pop music and within this con&shy;text the in&shy;fu&shy;sion of some blues{{h}}form into pop music is ex&shy;tremely wel&shy;come. Even in the hands of white sing&shy;ers it has in&shy;tro&shy;duced into a sadly ail&shy;ing pop cul&shy;ture some ele&shy;ments of an in&shy;fin&shy;itely richer ''folk'' cul&shy;ture {{p|131}}and some ele&shy;ments of a less cor&shy;rupted ''pop'' cul&shy;ture—the music of Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and James Brown still ex&shy;presses some&shy;thing of the agony of negro life as well as the enorm&shy;ous sur&shy;ging vi&shy;tal&shy;ity and new op&shy;tim&shy;ism of the {{w|Northern|Northern_United_States|Northern United States}} {{w|ghet&shy;toes|American_ghettos|American ghettos}}. British blues is primar&shy;ily a {{w|dance music|Dance_music|Dance music}} and if it is im&shy;pure it has, at least, an en&shy;thu&shy;si&shy;asm which is pos&shy;it&shy;ively damning to in&shy;hib&shy;i&shy;tion. In the clubs there is a new vigour.
  
{{tab}}Kenneth Rexroth once argued that jazz is a re&shy;volu&shy;tion&shy;ary music only in&shy;so&shy;far as it is con&shy;du&shy;cive to erot&shy;i&shy;cism in dan&shy;cing. The same might apply to British r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b. Today{{s}} audi&shy;ences are act&shy;ive and the groups, who still play for the crit&shy;ical club audi&shy;ences rather than the eas&shy;ily pleased pop {{qq|con&shy;cert}} audi&shy;ences, must make people want to dance. The mod&shy;ern dances are not {{w|set pat&shy;tern dances|Ballroom_dance}}. The {{w|Shake|The_Shake_(dance)}}, the {{w|Dog|Frug_(dance)}}, the {{w|Jerk|Jerk_(dance)}} are dances for crowded rooms, im&shy;pro&shy;vised round a basic pat&shy;tern, and the groups must be able to im&shy;pro&shy;vise to provide vari&shy;ety. In the clubs, for ex&shy;ample, Manfred Mann have played num&shy;bers like {{w|Cannon&shy;ball Adder&shy;ley|Cannonball_Adderley}}{{s}} ''{{w|Sack O{{a}} Woe|The_Cannonball_Adderley_Quintet_at_the_Lighthouse}}'' and their ori&shy;ginal{{dash|natur&shy;ally enough never re&shy;corded}}''Packet of Three'', which in&shy;volved viol&shy;ent cli&shy;maxes and sud&shy;den cliff{{h}}hang&shy;ing breaks in the rhythm. {{w|Graham Bond|Graham_Bond}} and {{w|Brian Auger|Brian_Auger}}, re&shy;cruits from mod&shy;ern jazz, and {{w|Georgie Fame|Georgie_Fame}}, a re&shy;cruit from rock {{a}}n{{a}} roll, play in much the same man&shy;ner and now that in&shy;stru&shy;ment&shy;a&shy;tion is veer&shy;ing away from har&shy;mon&shy;icas and gui&shy;tars, to saxes, flutes, organs and pianos it is these lat&shy;ter groups who may really come into their own.
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{{tab}}Kenneth Rexroth once argued that jazz is a re&shy;volu&shy;tion&shy;ary music only in&shy;so&shy;far as it is con&shy;du&shy;cive to erot&shy;i&shy;cism in dan&shy;cing. The same might apply to British r&nbsp;&rsquo;n&rsquo;&nbsp;b. Today{{s}} audi&shy;ences are act&shy;ive and the groups, who still play for the crit&shy;ical club audi&shy;ences rather than the eas&shy;ily pleased pop {{qq|con&shy;cert}} audi&shy;ences, must make people want to dance. The mod&shy;ern dances are not {{w|set pat&shy;tern dances|Ballroom_dance|Ballroom dance}}. The {{w|Shake|The_Shake_(dance)|The Shake}}, the {{w|Dog|Frug_(dance)|Frug}}, the {{w|Jerk|Jerk_(dance)|Jerk}} are dances for crowded rooms, im&shy;pro&shy;vised round a basic pat&shy;tern, and the groups must be able to im&shy;pro&shy;vise to provide vari&shy;ety. In the clubs, for ex&shy;ample, Manfred Mann have played num&shy;bers like {{w|Cannon&shy;ball Adder&shy;ley|Cannonball_Adderley}}{{s}} ''{{w|Sack O{{a}} Woe|The_Cannonball_Adderley_Quintet_at_the_Lighthouse|The Cannonball Adderley Quintet at the Lighthouse}}'' and their ori&shy;ginal—natur&shy;ally enough never re&shy;corded—''Packet of Three'', which in&shy;volved viol&shy;ent cli&shy;maxes and sud&shy;den cliff{{h}}hang&shy;ing breaks in the rhythm. {{w|Graham Bond|Graham_Bond}} and {{w|Brian Auger|Brian_Auger}}, re&shy;cruits from mod&shy;ern jazz, and {{w|Georgie Fame|Georgie_Fame}}, a re&shy;cruit from rock {{a}}n{{a}} roll, play in much the same man&shy;ner and now that in&shy;stru&shy;ment&shy;a&shy;tion is veer&shy;ing away from har&shy;mon&shy;icas and gui&shy;tars, to saxes, flutes, organs and pianos it is these lat&shy;ter groups who may really come into their own.
  
{{tab}}If the new music is dif&shy;fer&shy;ent, so are the new stars. Many of them are strange pop idols. {{w|Keith Relf|Keith_Relf}}, leader of the {{w|Yard&shy;birds|The_Yardbirds}}, was a {{w|Beat|Beatnik}} before he made a liv&shy;ing by sing&shy;ing and so was {{w|Rod the Mod Stewart|Rod_Stewart}}, pos&shy;sibly the best vo&shy;cal&shy;ist to emerge from the {{qq|boom}}. (Rod Stewart was also an In&shy;ter&shy;na&shy;tional Am&shy;a&shy;teur {{w|foot&shy;baller|Association_football}}.) Many groups ''look'' Beat; tired, worn and weary with the bum{{s}} slouch&shy;ing walk. In&shy;deed the myth&shy;o&shy;logy of the r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b clubs is the myth&shy;o&shy;logy of the angry, dishev&shy;elled re&shy;ject of ortho&shy;doxy, the pro&shy;test&shy;ing bum. The {{w|Pretty Things|Pretty_Things}}, the most beat{{h}}look&shy;ing of all, sing: {{qq|I{{m}} on my own, just wanna roam/<wbr>I{{ll}} tell you man, don{{t}} wanna home/<wbr>I wander roun{{a}} feet off the groun{{a}}/<wbr>Dig&shy;ging sounds from town to town/<wbr>I say I think this life is grand/<wbr>I say, I dig it man, don{{t}} bring me down, man/<wbr>{{w|Don{{t}} bring me down|Don't_Bring_Me_Down_(The_Pretty_Things_song)}} {{tab}}I met this chick the other day/<wbr>Then to me she said she{{ll}} stay/<wbr>I got this pad just like a cave/<wbr>And then we have a little rave/<wbr>And now I{{m}} lying on ground/<wbr>My head is spin&shy;ning round, don{{t}} bring me down man/don{{t}} bring<!-- 'bringe'' in original --> me down}}.
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{{tab}}If the new music is dif&shy;fer&shy;ent, so are the new stars. Many of them are strange pop idols. {{w|Keith Relf|Keith_Relf}}, leader of the {{w|Yard&shy;birds|The_Yardbirds|The Yardbirds}}, was a {{w|Beat|Beatnik|Beatnik}} before he made a liv&shy;ing by sing&shy;ing and so was {{w|Rod the Mod Stewart|Rod_Stewart|Rod Stewart}}, pos&shy;sibly the best vo&shy;cal&shy;ist to emerge from the {{qq|boom}}. (Rod Stewart was also an In&shy;ter&shy;na&shy;tional Am&shy;a&shy;teur {{w|foot&shy;baller|Association_football|Association football}}.) Many groups ''look'' Beat; tired, worn and weary with the bum{{s}} slouch&shy;ing walk. In&shy;deed the myth&shy;o&shy;logy of the r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b clubs is the myth&shy;o&shy;logy of the angry, dishev&shy;elled re&shy;ject of ortho&shy;doxy, the pro&shy;test&shy;ing bum. The {{w|Pretty Things|Pretty_Things|Pretty Things}}, the most beat{{h}}look&shy;ing of all, sing: {{qq|I{{m}} on my own, just wanna roam/<wbr>I{{ll}} tell you man, don{{t}} wanna home/<wbr>I wander roun{{a}} feet off the groun{{a}}/<wbr>Dig&shy;ging sounds from town to town/<wbr>I say I think this life is grand/<wbr>I say, I dig it man, don{{t}} bring me down, man/<wbr>{{w|Don{{t}} bring me down|Don't_Bring_Me_Down_(The_Pretty_Things_song)|Don{{a}}t Bring Me Down}} {{tab}}I met this chick the other day/<wbr>Then to me she said she{{ll}} stay/<wbr>I got this pad just like a cave/<wbr>And then we have a little rave/<wbr>And now I{{m}} lying on ground/<wbr>My head is spin&shy;ning round, don{{t}} bring me down man/don{{t}} bring<!-- 'bringe'' in original --> me down}}.
  
{{tab}}Other sing&shy;ers too have strange pasts. {{w|John Mayall|John_Mayall}}, leader of one of the most vigor&shy;ous groups, the {{w|Blues&shy;break&shy;ers|John_Mayall_&_the_Bluesbreakers}}, lived in a {{w|tree top house|Tree_house}}. {{w|Manfred Mann (sin&shy;gu&shy;lar)|Manfred_Mann_(musician)}} was {{w|clas&shy;sic&shy;ally trained|Classical_music}} at {{w|Juilliard<!-- 'Juillard' in original -->|Juilliard_School}} in the USA and is, even now, more than a little odd by pop stand&shy;ards. The whole Mann group took one man{{s}} name but in&shy;sist that they have no leader, that lead&shy;er&shy;ship is re&shy;dund&shy;ant and re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity shared and equal. It may have some&shy;thing to do with the fact that their vo&shy;cal&shy;ist {{w|Paul Jones|Paul_Jones_(singer)}} was once a mem&shy;ber of the {{w|Oxford|University_of_Oxford}} {{w|Com&shy;mit&shy;tee of 100|Committee_of_100_(United_Kingdom)}} and is, ap&shy;par&shy;ently, still a ''{{w|Tribune|Tribune_(magazine)}}'' con&shy;trib&shy;utor. The {{w|Anim&shy;als|The_Animals}}, prob&shy;ably the best pop{{h}}r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b group, emerged from the strange {{w|North East|North_East_England}} phe&shy;nomenon of {{qq|anim&shy;als}}, young people who spent the week&shy;ends away from their bour&shy;geois homes, on cheap trans&shy;port, living {{qq|rough}}. (In the {{w|South|Southern_England}} they might have earned the de&shy;ris&shy;ive epi&shy;thet {{qq|week&shy;end ravers}}.)
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{{tab}}Other sing&shy;ers too have strange pasts. {{w|John Mayall|John_Mayall}}, leader of one of the most vigor&shy;ous groups, the {{w|Blues&shy;break&shy;ers|John_Mayall_&_the_Bluesbreakers|John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers}}, lived in a {{w|tree top house|Tree_house|Tree house}}. {{w|Manfred Mann (sin&shy;gu&shy;lar)|Manfred_Mann_(musician)|Manfred Mann (musician)}} was {{w|clas&shy;sic&shy;ally trained|Classical_music|Classical music}} at {{w|Juilliard<!-- 'Juillard' in original -->|Juilliard_School|Juilliard School}} in the USA and is, even now, more than a little odd by pop stand&shy;ards. The whole Mann group took one man{{s}} name but in&shy;sist that they have no leader, that lead&shy;er&shy;ship is re&shy;dund&shy;ant and re&shy;spons&shy;ib&shy;il&shy;ity shared and equal. It may have some&shy;thing to do with the fact that their vo&shy;cal&shy;ist {{w|Paul Jones|Paul_Jones_(singer)}} was once a mem&shy;ber of the {{w|Oxford|University_of_Oxford|University of Oxford}} {{w|Com&shy;mit&shy;tee of 100|Committee_of_100_(United_Kingdom)}} and is, ap&shy;par&shy;ently, still a ''{{w|Tribune|Tribune_(magazine)|Tribune (magazine)}}'' con&shy;trib&shy;utor. The {{w|Anim&shy;als|The_Animals|The Animals}}, prob&shy;ably the best pop{{h}}r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b group, emerged from the strange {{w|North East|North_East_England|North East England}} phe&shy;nomenon of {{qq|anim&shy;als}}, young people who spent the week&shy;ends away from their {{p|132}}bour&shy;geois homes, on cheap trans&shy;port, living {{qq|rough}}. (In the {{w|South|Southern_England|Southern England}} they might have earned the de&shy;ris&shy;ive epi&shy;thet {{qq|week&shy;end ravers}}.)
  
{{tab}}Most of the r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b groups who have had hits have done so with num&shy;bers which were not r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b num&shy;bers. The Stones made a brave at&shy;tempt with the slow blues, ''{{w|Little Red Rooster|Little_Red_Rooster}}'', but most of their hits were white pop in origin{{dash}}''{{w|Not Fade Away|Not_Fade_Away_(song)}}'', a {{w|Buddy Holly|Buddy_Holly}} num&shy;ber, ''{{w|It{{s}} All Over Now|It's_All_Over_Now}}'', ori&shy;gin&shy;ally re&shy;corded by the {{w|C & C Boys|Clarence_Carter}} in Amer&shy;ica, a {{w|country{{h}}and{{h}}western|Country_music}} type num&shy;ber, ''{{w|I Wanna Be Your Man|I_Wanna_Be_Your_Man}}'' was by {{w|Lennon|John_Lennon}} and {{w|McCartney|Paul_McCartney}} and ''{{w|The Last Time|The_Last_Time_(Rolling_Stones_song)}}'' was writ&shy;ten by them&shy;selves al&shy;though it is re&shy;min&shy;is&shy;cent of the {{w|Staple Singers|The_Staple_Singers}}{{a}} ''This May Be My<!-- 'the' in original --> Last Time''. Manfred Mann re&shy;corded pop num&shy;bers, {{w|non&shy;sense songs|Nonsense_song}} and a {{w|ballad|Sentimental_ballad}}. Georgie Fame had a big hit with ''{{w|Yeh, Yeh|Yeh,_Yeh}}'', a soph&shy;ist&shy;ic&shy;ated {{w|Lam&shy;bert|Dave_Lambert_(American_jazz_vocalist)}}{{h}}{{w|Hend&shy;ricks|Jon_Hendricks}}{{h}}{{w|Bavan|Yolande_Bavan}} {{w|{{qq|cool}} jazz|Cool_jazz}} vocal with little blues con&shy;tent. (Sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;antly his fol&shy;low up ''In the Mean&shy;time'', in the same vein, did not do so well, dash&shy;ing the hopes of those who thought Fame rep&shy;res&shy;ented some sort of com&shy;mer&shy;cial break&shy;through for {{w|soul{{h}}jazz|Soul_jazz}}.) The Anim&shy;al{{s|r}} big hit, {{w|House of the Ris&shy;ing Sun|The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun}}, was a folk song. Other groups have either re&shy;corded and wrecked blues clas&shy;sics or con&shy;cen&shy;trated on mono&shy;ton&shy;ously con&shy;trived and un&shy;vary&shy;ingly dis&shy;mal ver&shy;sions of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley num&shy;bers, the staple diet of the un&shy;in&shy;vent&shy;ive. With their own ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they are rarely con&shy;vin&shy;cing; au&shy;then&shy;tic ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they wreck by an ap&shy;par&shy;ent in&shy;com&shy;pre&shy;hen&shy;sion of what they sing. In the clubs they are usu&shy;ally bet&shy;ter and to hear British r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b, with all its un&shy;deni&shy;able ex&shy;cite&shy;ment and all its un&shy;deni&shy;able, over&shy;all me&shy;diocrity, it is ne&shy;ces&shy;sary to visit the clubs.
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{{tab}}Most of the r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b groups who have had hits have done so with num&shy;bers which were not r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b num&shy;bers. The Stones made a brave at&shy;tempt with the slow blues, ''{{w|Little Red Rooster|Little_Red_Rooster}}'', but most of their hits were white pop in origin—''{{w|Not Fade Away|Not_Fade_Away_(song)}}'', a {{w|Buddy Holly|Buddy_Holly}} num&shy;ber, ''{{w|It{{s}} All Over Now|It's_All_Over_Now}}'', ori&shy;gin&shy;ally re&shy;corded by the {{w|C & C Boys|Clarence_Carter|Clarence Carter}} in Amer&shy;ica, a {{w|country{{h}}and{{h}}western|Country_music|Country music}} type num&shy;ber, ''{{w|I Wanna Be Your Man|I_Wanna_Be_Your_Man}}'' was by {{w|Lennon|John_Lennon|John Lennon}} and {{w|McCartney|Paul_McCartney|Paul McCartney}} and ''{{w|The Last Time|The_Last_Time_(Rolling_Stones_song)}}'' was writ&shy;ten by them&shy;selves al&shy;though it is re&shy;min&shy;is&shy;cent of the {{w|Staple Singers|The_Staple_Singers|The Staple Singers}}{{a}} ''This May Be My<!-- 'the' in original --> Last Time''. Manfred Mann re&shy;corded pop num&shy;bers, {{w|non&shy;sense songs|Nonsense_song|Nonsense song}} and a {{w|ballad|Sentimental_ballad|Sentimental ballad}}. Georgie Fame had a big hit with ''{{w|Yeh, Yeh|Yeh,_Yeh}}'', a soph&shy;ist&shy;ic&shy;ated {{w|Lam&shy;bert|Dave_Lambert_(American_jazz_vocalist)|Dave Lambert}}{{h}}{{w|Hend&shy;ricks|Jon_Hendricks|Jon Hendricks}}{{h}}{{w|Bavan|Yolande_Bavan|Yolande Bavan}} {{w|{{qq|cool}} jazz|Cool_jazz|Cool jazz}} vocal with little blues con&shy;tent. (Sig&shy;ni&shy;fic&shy;antly his fol&shy;low up ''In the Mean&shy;time'', in the same vein, did not do so well, dash&shy;ing the hopes of those who thought Fame rep&shy;res&shy;ented some sort of com&shy;mer&shy;cial break&shy;through for {{w|soul{{h}}jazz|Soul_jazz|Soul jazz}}.) The Anim&shy;al{{s|r}} big hit, {{w|House of the Ris&shy;ing Sun|The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun|The House of the Rising Sun}}, was a folk song. Other groups have either re&shy;corded and wrecked blues clas&shy;sics or con&shy;cen&shy;trated on mono&shy;ton&shy;ously con&shy;trived and un&shy;vary&shy;ingly dis&shy;mal ver&shy;sions of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley num&shy;bers, the staple diet of the un&shy;in&shy;vent&shy;ive. With their own ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they are rarely con&shy;vin&shy;cing; au&shy;then&shy;tic ma&shy;ter&shy;ial they wreck by an ap&shy;par&shy;ent in&shy;com&shy;pre&shy;hen&shy;sion of what they sing. In the clubs they are usu&shy;ally bet&shy;ter and to hear British r&nbsp;{{a}}n{{a}}&nbsp;b, with all its un&shy;deni&shy;able ex&shy;cite&shy;ment and all its un&shy;deni&shy;able, over&shy;all me&shy;diocrity, it is ne&shy;ces&shy;sary to visit the clubs.
  
{{tab}}There are clubs all over the coun&shy;try. In London there is the ''{{w|Flamingo|The_Flamingo_Club}}'', once ''the'' mod&shy;ern jazz centre, with its large, lively and crit&shy;ical audi&shy;ence, many of whom are {{w|West Indian|British_African-Caribbean_people}}; ''{{w|Klook{{s}} Kleek|Klooks_Kleek}}'' in {{w|West Hamp&shy;stead|West_Hampstead}} (the name a give{{h}}away of its mod&shy;ern jazz {{w|ori&shy;gins|Klook's_Clique}}); the ''{{w|Craw&shy;daddys|Crawdaddy_Club}}'' at {{w|Rich&shy;mond|Richmond,_London}} and {{w|Croy&shy;don|Broad_Green,_London}}; ''Blues&shy;ville Har&shy;ringay'' at {{w|Manor House|Manor_House,_London}}; ''Club Noreik'' at {{w|Tot&shy;ten&shy;ham|Tottenham}} and many, many more. In {{w|Southamp&shy;ton|Southampton}} there is ''Club Con&shy;cord'', in {{w|Man&shy;chester|Manchester}} the ''{{w|Twisted Wheel|Twisted_Wheel_Club}}'', in {{w|Guild&shy;ford|Guildford}} and {{w|Windsor|Windsor,_Berkshire}} the ''{{w|Ricky Ticks|Rick-Tick}}''. The out&shy;land&shy;ish&shy;ness of their names is only equalled by the names of the groups who play in them. Some take their names from song titles{{dash}}the {{w|Roll&shy;ing Stones|Rollin'_Stone}}, the {{w|{{popup|Hoochie Coochie Men|1964–65 band with Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, and Geoff Bradford}}|Hoochie_Coochie_Man}}, the {{w|Pretty Things|Pretty_Thing}}, the {{w|{{popup|Thunder&shy;birds|1963–68 band with Chris Farlowe and Bob Taylor}}|Thunderbird_(Willis_Jackson_album)}}, the {{w|{{popup|Dis&shy;satis&shy;fieds|1964 band who played at the Marquee Club}}|Down_and_Out_Blues}}. Others bor&shy;row other singer{{s|r}}<!-- 'singer's' in original --> names{{dash}}the {{w|{{popup|T-Bones|1963–66 band with Gary Farr}}|T-Bone_Walker}}, the {{w|Bo Street Run&shy;ners|The_Bo_Street_Runners}}.
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{{tab}}There are clubs all over the coun&shy;try. In London there is the ''{{w|Flamingo|The_Flamingo_Club|The Flamingo Club}}'', once ''the'' mod&shy;ern jazz centre, with its large, lively and crit&shy;ical audi&shy;ence, many of whom are {{w|West Indian|British_African-Caribbean_people|British African–Caribbean people}}; ''{{w|Klook{{s}} Kleek|Klooks_Kleek|Klooks Kleek}}'' in {{w|West Hamp&shy;stead|West_Hampstead}} (the name a give{{h}}away of its mod&shy;ern jazz {{w|ori&shy;gins|Klook's_Clique|Klook{{s}} Clique}}); the ''{{w|Craw&shy;daddys|Crawdaddy_Club|Crawdaddy Club}}'' at {{w|Rich&shy;mond|Richmond,_London|Richmond, London}} and {{w|Croy&shy;don|Broad_Green,_London|Broad Green, London}}; ''Blues&shy;ville Har&shy;ringay'' at {{w|Manor House|Manor_House,_London|Manor House, London}}; ''Club Noreik'' at {{w|Tot&shy;ten&shy;ham|Tottenham}} and many, many more. In {{w|Southamp&shy;ton|Southampton}} there is ''Club Con&shy;cord'', in {{w|Man&shy;chester|Manchester}} the ''{{w|Twisted Wheel|Twisted_Wheel_Club|Twisted Wheel Club}}'', in {{w|Guild&shy;ford|Guildford}} and {{w|Windsor|Windsor,_Berkshire|Windsor, Berkshire}} the ''{{w|Ricky Ticks|Ricky-Tick|Ricky-Tick}}''. The out&shy;land&shy;ish&shy;ness of their names is only equalled by the names of the groups who play in them. Some take their names from song titles—the {{w|Roll&shy;ing Stones|Rollin'_Stone|Rollin{{a}} Stone (song)}}, the {{w|Hoochie Coochie Men|Hoochie_Coochie_Man||1964–65 band with Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, and Geoff Bradford&#010;Wikipedia: Hoochie Coochie Man (song)}}, the {{w|Pretty Things|Pretty_Thing|Pretty Thing (song)}}, the {{w|Thunder&shy;birds|Thunderbird_(Willis_Jackson_album)||1963–68 band with Chris Farlowe and Bob Taylor&#010;Wikipedia: Thunderbird (song)}}, the {{w|Dis&shy;satis&shy;fieds|Down_and_Out_Blues||1964 band who played at the Marquee Club&#010;Wikipedia: Dissatisfied (song)}}. Others bor&shy;row other singer{{s|r}}<!-- 'singer's' in original --> names—the {{w|T-Bones|T-Bone_Walker||1963–66 band with Gary Farr&#010;Wikipedia: T-Bone Walker}}, the {{w|Bo Street Run&shy;ners|The_Bo_Street_Runners|The Bo Street Runners}}. Some use names which seem to sound good—the {{l|Au&shy;then&shy;tics|https://jppsessionman.jimdofree.com/john-williams/|1963–64 band with John Williams, Berne Williams, and Jimmy Page&#010;link: Jimmy Page fan site}}, the {{l|Soul Agents|https://www.allmusic.com/artist/soul-agents-mn0000428542/biography|Allmusic: The Soul Agents}}, the {{w|Delta Five|Nick_Simper|Nick Simper}}, {{l|Hog&shy;snort<!-- 'Hogsnot' in original --> Rupert|https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/ricky-tick/|Hogsnort Rupert and the Good Good Band, fronted by Bob McGrath&#010;link: Collectors Weekly article}}, the {{l|Loose{{h}}ends|https://garagehangover.com/the-loose-ends/|1964–67 band with Alan Marshall, Rick Marshall, Roy Davies, Peter Kirtley, and Alan Whitehead&#010;link: Garage Hangover}}, the {{w|Down&shy;liner{{s|r}} Sect|Downliners_Sect|Downliners Sect}}. The British blues has its ac&shy;know&shy;ledged {{qq|ori&shy;gin&shy;als}}, as does negro blues. The more hip fans talk as rev&shy;er&shy;ently of Alexis Korner, Cy Davies and even {{w|George Melly|George_Melly}}, as blues en&shy;thu&shy;si&shy;asts of {{w|Son House|Son_House}}, {{w|Charlie Pat&shy;ton|Charley_Patton|Charley Patton}} or {{w|Rob&shy;ert John&shy;son|Robert_Johnson}}. The lead&shy;ing star of this old elite is {{w|Long John Baldry|Long_John_Baldry}} who was a vocal&shy;ist{{h}}tam&shy;bourin&shy;ist with Cyril Davie{{s|r}} {{w|All{{h}}Stars|All-Stars_(band)|All-Stars}} (formed, from {{w|Scream&shy;ing Lord Sutch|Screaming_Lord_Sutch}}{{s}} former back&shy;ing group, the {{w|Sav&shy;ages|Screaming_Lord_Sutch_and_the_Savages|Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages}}, after Davie{{s|r}} break with Korner) and took over the band, chan&shy;ging its name to the Hoochie Coochie Men when Davies died, late in 1963. Baldry has an envi&shy;able repu&shy;ta&shy;tion, earned partly be&shy;cause he is con&shy;vinced of his own value and {{p|133}}partly be&shy;cause most groups are very poor, which has en&shy;abled him to break at&shy;tend&shy;ance re&shy;cords set by more ap&shy;par&shy;ently suc&shy;cess&shy;ful groups like the Roll&shy;ing Stones. He is a pass&shy;able singer, clever but un&shy;moving. The sort of bore&shy;dom he in&shy;duces has often been thought a sign of au&shy;then&shy;ti&shy;city.
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{{tab}}Over the last eighteen months there has been a steady stream of real blues&shy;men to this coun&shy;try, among them {{w|Big Joe Wil&shy;liams|Big_Joe_Williams}}, {{w|Sleepy John Estes|Sleepy_John_Estes}}, {{w|Light&shy;ning Hop&shy;kins|Lightnin'_Hopkins|Lightnin{{a}} Hopkins}}, {{w|John Lee Hooker|John_Lee_Hooker}} and the un&shy;ques&shy;tioned genius of in&shy;stru&shy;mental blues, the har&shy;mon&shy;icist {{w|Little Walter Jacobs|Little_Walter|Little Walter}}. While it re&shy;mains sadly true that local white sing&shy;ers are pre&shy;ferred to the {{qq|ori&shy;gin&shy;als}}, it is al&shy;most en&shy;tirely due to the pro&shy;pa&shy;ganda ef&shy;forts of the white mu&shy;si&shy;cians that we have been able to see the genu&shy;ine art&shy;icle at all. People like {{w|Mick Jagger|Mick_Jagger}} of the Roll&shy;ing Stones have been ad&shy;mir&shy;ably un&shy;self&shy;ish in their ful&shy;some praise of sing&shy;ers like Muddy Waters, James Brown and {{w|Howl&shy;ing Wolf|Howlin'_Wolf|Howlin{{a}} Wolf}}, an un&shy;self&shy;ish&shy;ness which clearly places them apart from most English {{w|re&shy;viv&shy;al&shy;ist|Revivalist_artist|Revivalist artist}} jazz band lead&shy;ers.
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{{tab}}It is tempt&shy;ing to end this ac&shy;count by argu&shy;ing strongly that white sing&shy;ers and mu&shy;si&shy;cians should leave negro {{qq|folk}} music alone. The British sing&shy;ers argue, cor&shy;rectly I think, that no music is sac&shy;ro&shy;sanct, that if they wish to play what they like and pub&shy;licly cham&shy;pion, that is their af&shy;fair. So it is. It is also the critic{{s}} right to as&shy;sess their music, rather than their so&shy;cial sig&shy;nif&shy;ic&shy;ance, in terms of the negro tra&shy;di&shy;tion and find it want&shy;ing. When Rod Stewart made the mem&shy;or&shy;able state&shy;ment that it is as easy to have the blues in the {{w|Arch&shy;way Road|A1_in_London#Haringey|A1 in London: Haringey}} as on a Deep South rail&shy;road he was, in a way, right. You can have the blues in the Arch&shy;way Road—the blues is, in one sense, the im&shy;mem&shy;or&shy;ial music of sad&shy;ness. But it is more than a sad&shy;ness in the heart, more than the ache of hun&shy;ger, more than the misery of the hobo. It is the vo&shy;cal ex&shy;pres&shy;sion of a people, just as all ''real'' folk music is. Rod Stewart is only half right. It may be as easy to ''have'' the blues in the Arch&shy;way Road. It just is not as easy to ''sing'' them.
 
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[[Category:Articles]]

Latest revision as of 15:51, 30 September 2021


129

Blues in the
Archway Road

BEN COVINGTON


Look­ing at the post­ers that lit­ter the side streets of cent­ral and sub­urban London, one might be for­given for as­sum­ing that the Blues was cre­ated by a post-Al­der­mas­ton gen­er­a­tion of art stu­dents rather than by the af­flic­ted negro pop­u­la­tion of the American Deep South. The post­ers ad­vert­ise au­then­tic Rhythm ’n’ blues by groups which play a vari­ety of music—some Pop-ori­ented, some Folk-ori­ented, some Jazz-ori­ented but largely de­rived from the music of the more sen­sa­tional col­oured en­ter­tain­ers of the USA, like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, James Brown and T-Bone Walker. Of the 2,000 or more groups work­ing the mul­ti­tude of large and small clubs, no more than two dozen are in any way ori­ginal, even in pop-music terms, and even these are root­less shad­ows of the sing­ers on whose ma­ter­ial they draw. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the blues of mod­ern Amer­ica and the “blues” of mod­ern Britain is the dif­fer­ence be­tween music which is an au­then­tic ra­cial ex­pres­sion and music which is an ex­pres­sion of no more than a lik­ing for the au­then­tic form.

  The ori­gins of British “blues” are far from clear. Their sem­inal genius may have been Muddy Waters who toured Britain in 1958 but it was not until March, 1962, when the har­mon­ica player Cyril Davies and the guitar­ist Alexis Korner opened the first of the clubs—next door to the ABC Teashop off Ealing Broad­way—that the “boom” really had its be­gin­nings. Korner and Davies played mainly pre-war blues of the negro night clubs of urban Amer­ica. Once they had their own stage the “boom” gathered in Cent­ral London, at­tract­ing a young audi­ence in re­ac­tion against a par­tic­u­larly en­feebled pop music—this was the hey-day of Cliff Rich­ard. The Band—known as Alexis Korner’s Blues In­cor­por­ated—had the now fa­mil­iar line-up of har­mon­ica, gui­tars and drums and if it was un­ex­it­ing com­pared with its Chicago par­ent it had, at least, a rhythmic earthi­ness and an emo­tional di­rect­ness which had been com­pletely ab­sent from pop music since the de­mise of rock ’n’ roll in the late ’50s.

  By the end of 1962 the Beatles had had their first small hit, Love Me Do, fea­tur­ing the ma­gical com­bin­a­tion of har­mon­ica, gui­tars and drums, and the Roll­ing Stones were mak­ing their early pub­lic ap­pear­ances at Ealing and else­where. In Janu­ary, 1963 the Stones ap­peared for the first time at the Marquee. The bill was topped by
130
Brian Knight’s Blues-by-six and the Stones earned £2 each as the fill-in group. By March the Stones had moved on—to the fringe of pop suc­cess—and their place was taken by another group from Ealing, the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers, later to be re-named Manfred Mann. By the time the Stones had their first small hit, Come On, in the summer of 1963 (only enough to earn them 83rd pos­i­tion in the 1963 New Mu­sical Ex­press Points Table, equal with Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, Ken Dodd and Chuck Berry) r ’n’ b was freely tipped as the next pop craze.
  It seems to have hap­pened for much the same reason as rock ’n’ roll ten years earlier: a teen­age re­ac­tion to the sickly gut­less­ness of ortho­dox pop. Its suc­cess has led to ex­traordin­ary re­sults. The Cliff Rich­ard pop image of tidy, boy-next-door Chris­tian­ity, has been re­placed by a styl­ised image of rough-living—beards, long hair, defi­ant non­chal­ance and an in­co­her­ent, un­ar­tic­u­lated curse against con­form­ity. The new image may be as un­real as the old but it is a great deal more toler­able. It is a cliché to ob­serve that pop music is a ma­jor field for the ex­ploit­a­tion and ma­nip­u­la­tion of young people, gener­at­ing re­spect for false values and poor stand­ards, ex­ploit­ing dis­satis­fac­tion to turn young people in on them­selves rather than out on so­ci­ety, serving the func­tion ascribed by Marx to re­li­gion, that of an “opi­ate of the people”. It would be un­real­istic to claim that r ’n’ b has altered this deeply en­grained pop-cul­tural pat­tern but it may have dented it. Since the suc­cess of the Beatles—re­corded not be­cause they might be made into stars but be­cause they already were local stars—teen­agers have shown a gradu­ally in­creas­ing in­de­pend­ence of the will of re­cord com­pan­ies. Mersey­beat and r ’n’ b—or at any rate the local vari­ant on the Amer­ican theme—were cre­ated by teen­agers for them­selves and al­though the com­pan­ies have ex­ploited this music, they have had their urual role, that of cre­ating stars, stolen from them by teen­agers. This has been a tend­ency rather than a de­cis­ive trend but it may rep­res­ent the first steps of teen­agers to free them­selves of the para­sites who live off them and their en­thu­si­asms. It is not just that the qual­ity of the music is bet­ter, al­though I be­lieve it is (com­pare the Beatles’ I’m a Loser or Manfred Mann’s I’m Your King­pin with Adam Faith’s What Do You Want? or Cliff Rich­ard’s The Young Ones) but that the re­la­tion­ships be­tween stars and audi­ences have changed. The new stars are of their pub­lic, neither pat­ron­ising nor stu­pid. They are ir­rev­er­ent, they smoke, they drink, they be­have with a nat­ur­al­ness which would have earned them noth­ing but abuse ten years ago and they are ar­tic­u­late spokes­men for the teen­age thing as well as for their music. The new stars are not held in awe ex­cept by the very young. The club-goer knows that re­cords are poor im­it­a­tions of club per­form­ances, that re­cord suc­cess leads to noth­ing so much as the di­lu­tion of a group’s “sound” in an en­deav­our to court gen­eral pop­ular­ity. It is, in short, doubt­ful whether the com­pan­ies have ever held so little sway over the avant garde “popnik”. Most young people listen to noth­ing but pop music and within this con­text the in­fu­sion of some blues-form into pop music is ex­tremely wel­come. Even in the hands of white sing­ers it has in­tro­duced into a sadly ail­ing pop cul­ture some ele­ments of an in­fin­itely richer folk cul­ture
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and some ele­ments of a less cor­rupted pop cul­ture—the music of Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and James Brown still ex­presses some­thing of the agony of negro life as well as the enorm­ous sur­ging vi­tal­ity and new op­tim­ism of the Northern ghet­toes. British blues is primar­ily a dance music and if it is im­pure it has, at least, an en­thu­si­asm which is pos­it­ively damning to in­hib­i­tion. In the clubs there is a new vigour.

  Kenneth Rexroth once argued that jazz is a re­volu­tion­ary music only in­so­far as it is con­du­cive to erot­i­cism in dan­cing. The same might apply to British r ’n’ b. Today’s audi­ences are act­ive and the groups, who still play for the crit­ical club audi­ences rather than the eas­ily pleased pop “con­cert” audi­ences, must make people want to dance. The mod­ern dances are not set pat­tern dances. The Shake, the Dog, the Jerk are dances for crowded rooms, im­pro­vised round a basic pat­tern, and the groups must be able to im­pro­vise to provide vari­ety. In the clubs, for ex­ample, Manfred Mann have played num­bers like Cannon­ball Adder­ley’s Sack O’ Woe and their ori­ginal—natur­ally enough never re­corded—Packet of Three, which in­volved viol­ent cli­maxes and sud­den cliff-hang­ing breaks in the rhythm. Graham Bond and Brian Auger, re­cruits from mod­ern jazz, and Georgie Fame, a re­cruit from rock ’n’ roll, play in much the same man­ner and now that in­stru­ment­a­tion is veer­ing away from har­mon­icas and gui­tars, to saxes, flutes, organs and pianos it is these lat­ter groups who may really come into their own.

  If the new music is dif­fer­ent, so are the new stars. Many of them are strange pop idols. Keith Relf, leader of the Yard­birds, was a Beat before he made a liv­ing by sing­ing and so was Rod the Mod Stewart, pos­sibly the best vo­cal­ist to emerge from the “boom”. (Rod Stewart was also an In­ter­na­tional Am­a­teur foot­baller.) Many groups look Beat; tired, worn and weary with the bum’s slouch­ing walk. In­deed the myth­o­logy of the r ’n’ b clubs is the myth­o­logy of the angry, dishev­elled re­ject of ortho­doxy, the pro­test­ing bum. The Pretty Things, the most beat-look­ing of all, sing: “I’m on my own, just wanna roam/I’ll tell you man, don’t wanna home/I wander roun’ feet off the groun’/Dig­ging sounds from town to town/I say I think this life is grand/I say, I dig it man, don’t bring me down, man/Don’t bring me down   I met this chick the other day/Then to me she said she’ll stay/I got this pad just like a cave/And then we have a little rave/And now I’m lying on ground/My head is spin­ning round, don’t bring me down man/don’t bring me down”.

  Other sing­ers too have strange pasts. John Mayall, leader of one of the most vigor­ous groups, the Blues­break­ers, lived in a tree top house. Manfred Mann (sin­gu­lar) was clas­sic­ally trained at Juilliard in the USA and is, even now, more than a little odd by pop stand­ards. The whole Mann group took one man’s name but in­sist that they have no leader, that lead­er­ship is re­dund­ant and re­spons­ib­il­ity shared and equal. It may have some­thing to do with the fact that their vo­cal­ist Paul Jones was once a mem­ber of the Oxford Com­mit­tee of 100 and is, ap­par­ently, still a Tribune con­trib­utor. The Anim­als, prob­ably the best pop-r ’n’ b group, emerged from the strange North East phe­nomenon of “anim­als”, young people who spent the week­ends away from their
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bour­geois homes, on cheap trans­port, living “rough”. (In the South they might have earned the de­ris­ive epi­thet “week­end ravers”.)

  Most of the r ’n’ b groups who have had hits have done so with num­bers which were not r ’n’ b num­bers. The Stones made a brave at­tempt with the slow blues, Little Red Rooster, but most of their hits were white pop in origin—Not Fade Away, a Buddy Holly num­ber, It’s All Over Now, ori­gin­ally re­corded by the C & C Boys in Amer­ica, a country-and-western type num­ber, I Wanna Be Your Man was by Lennon and McCartney and The Last Time was writ­ten by them­selves al­though it is re­min­is­cent of the Staple SingersThis May Be My Last Time. Manfred Mann re­corded pop num­bers, non­sense songs and a ballad. Georgie Fame had a big hit with Yeh, Yeh, a soph­ist­ic­ated Lam­bert-Hend­ricks-Bavan “cool” jazz vocal with little blues con­tent. (Sig­ni­fic­antly his fol­low up In the Mean­time, in the same vein, did not do so well, dash­ing the hopes of those who thought Fame rep­res­ented some sort of com­mer­cial break­through for soul-jazz.) The Anim­als’ big hit, House of the Ris­ing Sun, was a folk song. Other groups have either re­corded and wrecked blues clas­sics or con­cen­trated on mono­ton­ously con­trived and un­vary­ingly dis­mal ver­sions of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley num­bers, the staple diet of the un­in­vent­ive. With their own ma­ter­ial they are rarely con­vin­cing; au­then­tic ma­ter­ial they wreck by an ap­par­ent in­com­pre­hen­sion of what they sing. In the clubs they are usu­ally bet­ter and to hear British r ’n’ b, with all its un­deni­able ex­cite­ment and all its un­deni­able, over­all me­diocrity, it is ne­ces­sary to visit the clubs.

  There are clubs all over the coun­try. In London there is the Flamingo, once the mod­ern jazz centre, with its large, lively and crit­ical audi­ence, many of whom are West Indian; Klook’s Kleek in West Hamp­stead (the name a give-away of its mod­ern jazz ori­gins); the Craw­daddys at Rich­mond and Croy­don; Blues­ville Har­ringay at Manor House; Club Noreik at Tot­ten­ham and many, many more. In Southamp­ton there is Club Con­cord, in Man­chester the Twisted Wheel, in Guild­ford and Windsor the Ricky Ticks. The out­land­ish­ness of their names is only equalled by the names of the groups who play in them. Some take their names from song titles—the Roll­ing Stones, the Hoochie Coochie Men, the Pretty Things, the Thunder­birds, the Dis­satis­fieds. Others bor­row other singers’ names—the T-Bones, the Bo Street Run­ners. Some use names which seem to sound good—the Au­then­tics, the Soul Agents, the Delta Five, Hog­snort Rupert, the Loose-ends, the Down­liners’ Sect. The British blues has its ac­know­ledged “ori­gin­als”, as does negro blues. The more hip fans talk as rev­er­ently of Alexis Korner, Cy Davies and even George Melly, as blues en­thu­si­asts of Son House, Charlie Pat­ton or Rob­ert John­son. The lead­ing star of this old elite is Long John Baldry who was a vocal­ist-tam­bourin­ist with Cyril Davies’ All-Stars (formed, from Scream­ing Lord Sutch’s former back­ing group, the Sav­ages, after Davies’ break with Korner) and took over the band, chan­ging its name to the Hoochie Coochie Men when Davies died, late in 1963. Baldry has an envi­able repu­ta­tion, earned partly be­cause he is con­vinced of his own value and
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partly be­cause most groups are very poor, which has en­abled him to break at­tend­ance re­cords set by more ap­par­ently suc­cess­ful groups like the Roll­ing Stones. He is a pass­able singer, clever but un­moving. The sort of bore­dom he in­duces has often been thought a sign of au­then­ti­city.

  Over the last eighteen months there has been a steady stream of real blues­men to this coun­try, among them Big Joe Wil­liams, Sleepy John Estes, Light­ning Hop­kins, John Lee Hooker and the un­ques­tioned genius of in­stru­mental blues, the har­mon­icist Little Walter Jacobs. While it re­mains sadly true that local white sing­ers are pre­ferred to the “ori­gin­als”, it is al­most en­tirely due to the pro­pa­ganda ef­forts of the white mu­si­cians that we have been able to see the genu­ine art­icle at all. People like Mick Jagger of the Roll­ing Stones have been ad­mir­ably un­self­ish in their ful­some praise of sing­ers like Muddy Waters, James Brown and Howl­ing Wolf, an un­self­ish­ness which clearly places them apart from most English re­viv­al­ist jazz band lead­ers.

  It is tempt­ing to end this ac­count by argu­ing strongly that white sing­ers and mu­si­cians should leave negro “folk” music alone. The British sing­ers argue, cor­rectly I think, that no music is sac­ro­sanct, that if they wish to play what they like and pub­licly cham­pion, that is their af­fair. So it is. It is also the critic’s right to as­sess their music, rather than their so­cial sig­nif­ic­ance, in terms of the negro tra­di­tion and find it want­ing. When Rod Stewart made the mem­or­able state­ment that it is as easy to have the blues in the Arch­way Road as on a Deep South rail­road he was, in a way, right. You can have the blues in the Arch­way Road—the blues is, in one sense, the im­mem­or­ial music of sad­ness. But it is more than a sad­ness in the heart, more than the ache of hun­ger, more than the misery of the hobo. It is the vo­cal ex­pres­sion of a people, just as all real folk music is. Rod Stewart is only half right. It may be as easy to have the blues in the Arch­way Road. It just is not as easy to sing them.