I was thinking yesterday how, one way or another, they form the core of music I grew up on. I actually played in a band called Underground Picnic (great name huh?) with one of my lecturers who had played with John Mayall briefly in the mid 60s.
Thinking back, I was initially more keen on the blues-rock tradition, rather than their source material, though aged 16 I did buy Muddy Waters ‘I Can’t Get No Grindin’ but only because it was cheap. My first love was Cream, buying a secondhand copy of Fresh Cream and loving it and it was from there that I jumped into the world of blues. As was common at the time, I poured over the writing credits, learning about the likes of Willie Dixon and Skip James.
When I was full into Cream, I discovered Ten Years After. This was about 1976, so I was able to collect their whole catalogue. Of course there was Zeppelin but at the time I didn’t know where songs like Babe, I’m Going To Lose You, Lemon Song and Whole Lotta Love had their origin.
It was at that point, I crossed the Atlantic and got my first Johnny Winter album. The Johnny Winter And Live record, which I adored, followed by Captured Live. Then came Free’s Tons Of Sobs and Fire And Water and Free Live. God, I must have played them every day for 3 years in the late 70s. Same with Rory’s Made In Europe, Irish Tour ‘74 and Blueprint. Fleetwood Mac’s debut was also important
I think it was at that point that I really started digging past the headline acts and briefly became obsessed with the Electric Flag and Mike Bloomfield. And from there I discovered Butterfield Blues Band’s East West track and Blues Project which was the home of my TYA favourite I Can’t Keep From Crying, Sometimes.
It’s remarkable really that early love of Clapton and Cream led in so many directions, especially in Clapton’s case, Layla and assorted Love Songs, which was so powerful and I loved, along with their live album.
As I got these albums, I added the rest of their catalogue to my list of records to get. It grew and grew. I found that I added a lot of blues boom records to the collection, as I have discussed previously. I don’t know if this is just a sign of getting older and more sophisticated but I began to enjoy the music of Howlin’ Wolf which so much rock was derived from. And if you listened to the Yardbirds, you got educated in the music of Sonny Boy Williamson. But oddly enough I found BB King much later through a live version of The Thrill Is Gone on a Volunteer Jam album and that led me to his seminal live records, then Freddie and Albert King. I kept hearing originals of songs later rock people had interpreted, like Born Under A Bad Sign and The Hunter. It was a thrill and an education to keep finding these originals.
By the mid-80s SRV was a new passion and the blues seemed to get an injection of new energy, with the likes of Robert Cray. Before you knew it, following the success of Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues, everyone was making a blues record. Some were more successful than others. The LA Blues Authority were formed as a loose collective for example.
Nowadays, I still love Cream, especially Goodbye which really laid down a route map for future generations. But I have also got into innovators like Magic Sam, T-Bone Walker and Robert Johnson. Of course, hand-in-hand with the blues came jazz with the likes of Wes Montgomery. It’s taken 50 years but I now must own every pivotal record in blues and blues-rock and to think it all started with the copy of Fresh Cream.
