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

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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}}, 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}}.
 
{{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}}.
  
{{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}}.)
+
{{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}}.)
  
 
{{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.
 
{{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.

Revision as of 00:18, 12 March 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 United Kingdom 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 Broad­waythat 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 In­cor­por­atedhad 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
131
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 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 <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: country-and-western">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 <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: soul-jazz">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 <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: Hoochie Coochie Men">Hoochie Coochie Men, the Pretty Things, the <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: Thunder­birds">Thunder­birds, the <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: Dis­satis­fieds">Dis­satis­fieds. Others bor­row other singers’ names—the <span data-html="true" class="plainlinks" title="Wikipedia: T-Bones">T-Bones, the Bo Street Run­ners.