The Development of the British Blues, show 1
1-8-2014
Skiffle
Alexis Korner
Graham Bond
In the mid ‘50s, the Brits were enamored of a music they referred
to as Trad Jazz. Exactly what this was, whether it was what we call
Dixieland or maybe Swing I am not sure, but out of these Jazz ensembles came a
musical expression called Skiffle. One of the popular practitioners of
Trad Jazz was Chris Barber, a bandleader since 1948, and he assembled from the
ranks of his Jazz band a handful of players to perform between the Jazz sets a
music with guitar and/or banjo, percussion and often harmonica as the dominant
instruments and based upon a combination of American folk traditions,
particularly Blues, Gospel and work chants with many similarities to the jug
bands of the 30s.
Probably the most popular of the Skiffle singers was Tony Donegan
who, while performing on the same bill as Lonnie Johnson, was erroneously
introduced as Lonnie Donegan and opted to maintain that as his stage name,
presumably out of respect for the great American Jazz/Blues guitarist.
While he released his early recordings under his own name, he was still a
member of the Barber band, but upon returning from a highly successful ten week
US tour with the intention of remaining with Barber, he found himself priced
out of Chris’ range, who had a policy of equal pay for all his personnel.
Although all the tunes we hear in these two sets were released between 1954 and
1956 (and taken from disc two of Proper’s 4CD Rock ‘n’ Skiffle, whose liner
notes also provided this information), Lonnie went on to a successful career
lasting long after the Skiffle craze had waned around 1958.
Only Donegan was more successful than the Vipers, who had a half
dozen hits since their start in 1956. By the time the band folded in
1958, they had added Hank Marvin, Tony Meehan and Jet Harris to the lineup who
continued together and ultimately became the Shadows, one of the most influential
Brit bands of the era and backed up some of the popular singers of the
time. Vipers’ founder Wally Whyton went on to have a long BBC career,
active until one month before his death in 1997.
Pianist Johnny Parker was intrigued by Boogie Woogie and Blues,
and while part of the Humphrey Lyttleton Band was able to indulge when the band
broke into its Skiffle sets and was actually the first to regularly perform as
such during his Skiffle night at the Latin Quarter in Soho, predating Barber by
a few months. He also played in bands with Barber, Colyer and Korner.
Emerging out of these groups was Alexis Korner, whom we hear here
with Beryl Bryden’s Backroom Skiffle band. Washboard player and vocalist
Bryden, dubbed by Ella Fitzgerald as the British Queen of the Blues, was
herself a graduate of the Barber band.
Alexis was born in Paris in 1928 and moved around Europe and North
Africa until settling in England in 1939. He had been taught piano from
age five, but as a teen he discovered Jimmy Yancey (by stealing an album) and
that boogie woogie led to a lifelong love for the Blues. When his father
heard him trying to play Yancey’s licks on their grand piano he locked up the
lid and forbade Alexis from ever playing the family instrument again. 1947 saw Alexis serving in the British
version of the draft and stationed in West Germany where he was exposed to more
Jazz and Blues through the U.S. Armed Forces radio as well as the American
servicemen’s private collections of V-disks (special morale-boosting releases
for the military made when there was a recording ban during WWII) and
records. That experience, coupled with
the opportunity to see a Leadbelly concert, made up Korner’s mind to become a
musician fulltime.
With Tony (later Lonnie) Donegan leaving to do his National
Service in 1949, Korner replaced him in the Chris Barber band as a guitarist
and occasionally as a harmonica player. As Korner later put it, “I was
one of the first and one of the worst harmonica players in the country”. By
the time Donegan returned, Alexis had built himself a sufficient reputation to
open up other musical opportunities. He
could be found performing solo around the coffee houses or other night spots in
London and then showing up at the after hours clubs to seek out fellow
Blues-minded musicians, but pretty soon Ken Colyer split from the Barber band
and set up his own Jazz band. Alexis was
immediately installed as guitar and mandolin player for their Skiffle offshoot which
very shortly recorded three songs included on Colyer’s full band LP Back to the
Delta in June of 1954. In July the
following year they returned to the studio and Colyer’s Skiffle Group put out
their own EP.
Korner’s next recording session was in November
of 1956 for the Beryl Bryden single we heard at the end of our Skiffle portion
of this show. It was significant in part
because it was the first studio session for Cyril Davies, who would be a key
factor in the Korner story as his harmonica and guitar playing accompanist over
the next few years. The band returned
to the studio a couple of months later
and laid down two more tracks that would remain on the shelf for a half
century.
Davies had been running the London Skiffle Club in its
performances every Thursday night in the upstairs pub in the Roundhouse and in
1955 he took in Alexis as a partner, changing it to the London Blues and
Barrelhouse Club, which became the first club for the Blues and was visited by
American bluesmen when in town including Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Big Bill
Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and Champion Jack Dupree. It
didn’t hurt that Chris Barber was instrumental in bringing these players to
England, [and Davies and
Korner remained working members of Barber’s band. (verify?)] In February of 1957 the first of three releases
that went under the title Blues from the Roundhouse was recorded, this as a
seven track LP with Korner and Davies backed by Terry Plant on string bass and
Mike Collins on washboard, calling the band Alexis Korner’s Breakdown Group
featuring Cyril Davies. This came out on the 77 label who, in order to
avoid a sales tax, limited the pressing to 99 copies which were sold only
through Doug Dobel’s Jazz Shop. July 1957 found them recording Volume 1,
the first of two four song EPs for Decca’s Tempo label. To the
label’s demands and against the band’s wishes, it was credited to Alexis
Korner’s Skiffle Group including Chris Capon on bass and Dave Stevens on
piano. Stevens was on hand for Volume 2 along with Collins and bassist
Jim Bray for an April 1958 session. This was the first time the name
Blues Incorporated was used. Personal
differences had taken its toll and Korner went back to the Barber band while
Davies also continued performing, most often in a duo setting with guitarist
Geoff Bradford.
By the end of summer 1961, the Barber band had changed the Skiffle
break to an R&B set, oftentimes backing Chris’ wife Ottilie
Patterson. This was also the first time Alexis had played using amplified
equipment. The success of these performances provided the impetus to form
his own electric band. Getting together again in March of 1962, Korner
and Davies opened the Ealing Club in London and formed again Blues Incorporated
with saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith,
Hoogonboom on bass and on drums Charlie Watts.
Long John Baldry was brought in to allow Davies to pay more attention to
his harmonica playing and was the only paid vocalist among many sit-ins, including at varying
times Mick Jagger, Paul Jones, Eric Burdon and Art Wood.
Among the instrumentalists who would also join the band onstage were Keith
Richard and Brian Jones and all of these would play a part in propelling the
Blues to the status where it was the predominant Brit musical form of the late
60s and further.
They also got a prestigious booking on Thursday nights beginning
in May at the Marquee while maintaining their Saturday night gig at the Ealing
Club. By September, the Marquee was drawing 1,000 people attending the
Thursday events. Even adding Monday night shows in December could not
stem the overflowing crowds. In June, they recorded the studio album
titled R&B from the Marquee, but by October, musical differences arose, and
once again the two took separate paths, Korner still under the banner of Blues
Incorporated and Cyril Davies with his All Stars.
At one point, the entire band backing Korner for Blues
Incorporated were members of the future Graham Bond Organization, a four-piece
group whose drummer and bass player (Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce) would later
form Cream with guitarist Eric Clapton. Saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith
would himself join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and later Colosseum. In
fact, these three represented exactly what Davies felt was the wrong direction
Blues Incorporated was headed, just too strong a Jazz influence for Davies’
purist vision of the Blues.
When Cyril left, Graham Bond joined the band as well. While
Bond was signed on as an alto sax player and to share in the vocals, he quickly
convinced Korner that he should lead a trio while playing the Hammond organ (he
later created a keyboard instrument he called the mellotron) accompanied by
Baker and Bruce during the full band’s
breaks. The trio was received
sufficiently well that they decided there was more money to be made on their
own than with Blues Incorporated. They
also invited Heckstall-Smith to join them, but at the time he wished to immerse
himself a little longer in the Blues.
NOTE: from here on, this post is still a work in progress but it should be completed by the end of the month. Just need to input and verify more information, particularly on the Bond Organization. My apologies.
Dick Heckstall-Smith had been the first of the quartet to join
Blues Incorporated. The Rough Guide for
Jazz considered him “a pioneer in his 1960s commuting between Jazz and Blues”
and “a crucially important, if not relatively undersung, figure in UK
Jazz-related music”. They list a resume
that includes being co-leader of the Cambridge University’s Jazz Band in 1954
and touring with them in Switzerland in 1956.
Among his accomplishments in the London Jazz scene were a 1958 stint
with Sandy Brown’s band and an 18-week membership in the Ronnie Scott Quintet,
also in 1958. He then freelanced until
joining Blues Incorporated in 1962, then on to the Bond Organization and
ultimately to Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1967.
As Mayall was moving his focus (and residency) to American musicians, he
became part of Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum from August ’68 to November of ’71,
after which he began his solo career. He
went on to get a social sciences degree, form his own bands and tour Europe
with Bo Diddley in 1983.
Long before their association with Korner, Heckstall-Smith and
Ginger Baker had played together in numerous of the London Jazz bands and jam
sessions. Baker came into the Korner
ensemble as the recipient of the bizarre situation where Watts felt Baker was
the best fit for the band and offered to drop out. Watts thought himself not that good a drummer
and wasn’t really ready for the professional musician’s life, but immediately
after his departure he fell into a band that would soon become the Rolling
Stones.
Jack Bruce came into contact with Korner and company when he
approached the band requesting to sit in.
Alexis was in a mood to allow him to join in on the last set. The first tune was a relatively simple one
and Bruce impressed so the next ones got progressively faster and more
complicated structurally and Jack continued to shine. Korner knew then that he had found the bass
player he wanted. After his 1963-65
service with Bond, Bruce worked briefly with Mayall and Manfred Mann before the
startup of Cream.
Although Graham Bond was the front man, namesake for the group and
no less talented musically than anyone in the band, no small feat in itself, it
was Ginger Baker who gradually dominated most of the business-related decisions. Complaining that in spite of their grueling
playing schedule (x gigs in x days plus studio sessions fit in between) the
band seemed to never have enough money left over, he took over finances saying
Bond was, “ “ He also fired John
McLaughlin, who had been with the band only a short time before Heckstall-Smith
joined them, because he was “a whiner and a moaner” and Bruce at knifepoint
In January of 1963, Korner gave up his Thursday night slot at the
Marquee in favor of Thursdays at the Flamingo; Davies quickly snatched up the
Marquee opening. May 1963 saw the recording of an album titled Alexis
Korner’s Blues Incorporated with only Heckstall-Smith a familiar name on the
all-instrumental album. To replace the alto sax of Bond, Heckstall-Smith
recommended Art Themen whom Dick had performed with
Zoot Money until October 1963, then Goins; ex-GI had sung with BB
King and Bobby Bland; Cavern included DHS, David Castle on alto sax, Malcolm
Saul on organ, drummer Mike Scott and bass; joining Alexis at the BBC studio
November ‘64 were Goins, DHS, Ray Warleigh on alto, Thompson and Cox
But to replace Bond’s vocal participation Korner found the fix in
a black American ex-GI, Herbie Goins.
This revamping of the lineup occurred in time for their February
64 live album recording, At the Cavern, but Goins would stick through the
follow-up (recording date not known, but released in 1964) Red Hot from Alex as
well as a couple of singles released in 1964 and 1965. Making his first
appearance on the Alex album was bass player Danny Thompson. He and
drummer Terry Cox would form the foundation of the next era of Blues
Incorporated, even performing often as a trio, before the duo went on to a
higher level of commercial acceptance with the folk-rock band, Pentangle.
We took the first Korner set from the
1967 Sky High album (so named because there was apparently a copious amount of
pot ingested during the session) while the second Korner set is BBC material
recorded about the same time and included in that excellent CD. The
Graham Bond sets are from his excellent LPs The Sounds of ’65 and There’s a
Bond Between Us, which have been combined on a single CD.
While Korner was never considered a great musician, the legacy of his
utilization of local Blues and Jazz talent established his reputation as the
“Father of British Blues”, a title of which he did not approve. He was
often known to say that the genre had been overrun by players, many of whom he
had inspired, who wanted to bloviate on extended solos rather than the basics
of the Blues. He never made much money from his musical efforts, so it
was a wise decision back in 1955 to sign on with the British Broadcasting
Corporation as a trainee studio manager in order to put food on the table for
his family. It set him up for a highly successful radio career (and some
television as well) leading up to 1977, when he wrote his own scripts for The
Alexis Korner Blues and Soul Show. I am not sure exactly, but I believe
he was still with the BBC right up to October 1983 when he collapsed and was
rushed to the hospital, passing away on New Year’s Day of 1984 at the age of
55. Just another way he turned people on to his love for the Blues and
music in general.
