Blues music originated in the late nineteenth century, and was first called the Folk Blues.  George W. Johnson's Laughing Song was the first recorded blues song, cut in 1895.

Promotional poster for the first blues recording (left).

W. C. Handy, a composer, musician, and bandleader of the Mahara Minstrels, came across the blues in a Tutwiler, Mississippi train station in 1903.  According to Handy, while he was waiting for the train, he heard the unforgettable sound of a man sliding a knife against the strings of his guitar while he sang, “Goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog.”  Handy was struck by the music, and never forgot it.

Not long after, in 1912, Handy published Memphis Blues, making him the third person in a few months to publish a song with the name “blues.”

Electric Blues, performed by now legendary American blues men T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, B. B. King, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, and numerous others, became popular in the mid 1940s.  This form of The Blues inspired the 1960s rock performers, and provided the major influence heard in modern rock.

Blues-Rock [ top ]

While rock and blues have always been closely linked, Blues-Rock, as a distinctly recognizable genre, did not arise until the late 1960s.  In 1963 American guitarist Lonnie Mack (right) developed the guitar style which came to be identified with blues-rock.

That year, he released several full-length rock guitar instrumentals strongly grounded in the blues.  The best-known are the hit singles Memphis (Billboard #5) and Wham (Billboard #24).

However, blues-rock was not considered a distinct movement within rock until a few years later, with the advent of such British bands as Free, Savoy Brown and the earliest incarnations of Fleetwood Mac, whose members had honed their skills in a handful of British blues bands, primarily those of John Mayall and Alexis Korner.

At that point, Mack's recordings were rediscovered and he, too, came to be regarded as a blues-rock artist. Other American performers, such as Johnny Winter (left), Paul Butterfield and the group, Canned Heat, are also considered blues-rock pioneers.

Johnny Winter, a native of Beaumont, Texas, exploded on the rock music scene with the 1969 release of his debut albums, The Progressive Blues Experiment and Johnny Winter.  Although suffering health restrictions, Johnny Winter is still active on North American tour dates.

Among his many accomplishments, Winter has produced two Grammy Award winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters, and has had Grammy nominations for at least three of his own.  He was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1988.

Music critic Piero Scaruffi argues that the blues-rock genre was defined when John Mayall released the album Blues Breakers in 1966, which included guitarist Eric Clapton. Scaruffi defines "blues-rock" as a "genre of rhythm'n'blues played by white European musicians."

Scaruffi claims that the US "equivalent of John Mayall was Al Kooper." Cream "took the fusion of blues and rock to places where it had never been before" by engaging in a "level of group improvisation that was worthy of jazz."

He calls Fleetwood Mac (during the Peter Green period in the late 1960s) "one of the most creative and competent British bands of the blues revival." Scaruffi argues that the "British blues musicians were true innovators", in that they did a "metamorphosis" on US blues and "turned it into a "white music" by emphasizing "the epic refrains of the call and response", speeding up the "Chicago's (Chicago Blues) rhythm guitars," smoothing "the vocal delivery to make it sound more operatic" and adding vocal harmony.

The revolutionary electric guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix (a veteran of many American rhythm & blues and soul groups from the early-mid 1960s) and his power trios, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys, has had broad and lasting influence on the development of blues-rock, especially for guitarists.

Eric Clapton was another guitarist with a lasting influence on the genre; his work in the 1960s and 1970s with The Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, the supergroup Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, and an extensive solo career has been seminal in bringing blues-rock into the mainstream.

By the late '60s, American acts such as The Doors and Janis Joplin further introduced mainstream audiences to the genre.

1970s Blues-Rock [ top ]

In the late 1960s, Jeff Beck (left), another former member of The Yardbirds, revolutionized blues rock into a form of heavy rock, taking the UK and the USA by storm with his band, The Jeff Beck Group.

Jeff Beck was born in Wallington, England on June 24, 1944.  As a youngster, he sang in a church choir, and built his first guitars from scrap materials he found lying around his parent's house.

As a teenager, Beck's sister introduced him to Jimmy Page, who recommended him to replace Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds a few years later.  Beck was in the band for eighteen months, during which time he recorded one album, Yardbirds, and was on most of their break-through hit singles.

After leaving The Yardbirds, Beck released two hit UK singles under his name, and recorded the classic, Beck's Bolero, with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Keith Moon, and Nicky Hopkins.  Around this time, he formed the first Jeff Beck Group, who's two highly acclaimed albums, Truth and Beck-Ola put him back in the international rock spotlight.

Beck was sidelined for a year following a car accident shortly after the break-up of his first band.  He returned with another, completely different, Jeff Beck Group, who explored elements of jazz fusion with Beck's classic rock guitar styling.  He dissolved this group after two albums and teamed up with Tim Bogart and Carmine Appice.

Beck, Bogart and Appice were together for two years, and released one studio album.  Following this, Beck has released several albums under his name, has done session work and appeared with other artists, including blues legend, B.B. King.  He continues touring to the present day.

Led Zeppelin  [ top ]

Jimmy Page, a third alumnus of The Yardbirds, was forming The New Yardbirds around the time Beck was forming the first Jeff Beck Group.  Page's first impulse was to form a supergroup with himself and Jeff Beck on guitars, along with The Who's rhythm section, Keith Moon (drums) and John Entwistle (bass).  Donovan, Steve Winwood, and Steve Marriott were also considered.  Contractual issues scuttled the project.

Page and Yardbirds bassist, Chris Dreja, had acquired the rights to play out the remaining Yardbirds concert obligations in Scandinavia after the band dissolved in July, 1968, and they started putting a new band together for these dates.  They recruited vocalist, Robert Plant, who recommended drummer, John Bonham.

Dreja opted out of the new lineup before the band left for Denmark, and was replaced by John Paul Jones (bass and keyboards), who Page had worked with as a session player.  John Paul Jones commented that the band "locked together as a team..." from the start of their first rehearsal in a room below a record store on Gerrard St. in London.

After finishing studio sessions in London with American singer and actor, P.J. Proby, the new band put together a set for the Scandinavian tour.  There was a feeling of deception and dishonesty about playing as The Yardbirds in Scandinavia, and it was decided that The New Yardbirds was not a fitting name for this band. 

When they returned to England after the tour, the name "Lead Zeppelin" was considered, reportedly from a comment Keith Moon made about Page's original supergroup idea "...going over like a lead zeppelin...".  Band manager, Peter Grant, shortened this to "led", so people wouldn't pronounce it "leed".

They performed their first engagement as Led Zeppelin at The University of Guildford, Surrey, England, on October 25, 1968.  Their first North American concert tour began on December 26 that year, opening in Denver, Colorado.

Led Zeppelin, their classic first album, was released by Atlantic Records on January 12, 1969, while they were in the middle of the first North American tour. The band went on to become the most successful rock act of their time, and were a huge force in the early '70s blues-rock scene.

American band, Little Feat, formed in Los Angeles in 1969 by multi-talented guitarist, singer, song-writer Lowell George and keyboardist, Bill Payne, made a relatively quiet contribution to the blues rock scene in the early '70s.  Although openly praised and admired by other top performers of the time, notably members of Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, Little Feat never achieved major success with the mainstream audience of that time.

The Australian band, AC/DC, who appeared on the international rock scene in the mid '70s, were also influenced by blues rock.  Although some music critics claim AC/DC is the prototype heavy metal band, the band members have always maintained they consider themselves a rock and roll/hard rock band.

Other blues-rock musicians who were influential on the scene in the 1970s included Irish guitarist, Rory Gallagher (right), and former Procol Harum guitarist, Robin Trower (below, left).

Gallagher, who has sold over 30 million copies of his albums world-wide, passed away in London, England in 1995 at the age of 47. 

Trower is still active, and began a world tour with his latest band in January, 2008.

Beginning in the early 1970s, American bands such as Aerosmith fused blues and heavy metal similar to the way Led Zeppelin had just a few years earlier.  Blues-rock grew to include Southern rock, and hard rock bands like the Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd emerged as blues-rock contributors.

The British scene, except for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat, became focused on heavy metal innovation.

After The Revival [ top ]

Mainstream rock audiences shifted their preferences away from blues-rock in the latter half of the 1970s.  The majority gravitated to heavy metal, progressive rock, glitter rock, punk, gothic, and new wave as rock entered the 1980s.

Blues-rock had a re-birth in the early 1990s, with many artists such as The White Stripes, John Mayer (left), The Black Crowes, The Black Keys, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Silvertide, and Joe Bonamassa adding their contributions to the genre.

The fickle attention of the mainstream rock audience flits from one style to another very quickly, but blues-rock maintains a hard core of followers that remain devoted into the new millennium of the 2000s. 

Blues-rock has had a place in rock music since its inception in the late '60s, and is remembered as the genre that was in vogue when "classic rock" bands were in their heyday in those years.

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