The British R ‘n‘ B boom of the early 1960’s led directly to the British Blues Explosion in 1968.
The London R n B boom led by, for example, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things and to some extent the Beatles quickly moved into mainstream pop and left a vacuum in the London clubs.
This vacuum, in London, was filled in the mid 60’s by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton and Savoy Brown’s Blues Band featuring Kim Simmonds.Both these bands became headliners at major London clubs such as The Marquee establishing a “blues night” amongst the mainstream soul and popular music in the charts at that time. As headlining pioneers of the new blues movement Savoy Brown gave a platform to emerging bands in other areas of the U.K. Ten Years After and Jethro Tull both were opening acts to Savoy Brown on blues night at the Marquee.
Chicken Shack from Birmingham also came to London and along with the early Fleetwood Mac established themselves on the scene.
John Mayall, Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, Chicken Shack and Ten Years After became the “big six” blues bands at that time.Hits soon followed for these bands (Savoy Brown cracking the USA in 1969) and the blues movement quickly gave way to the heavy rock of Black Sabbath, themselves a blues band when they started.
The British Blues Boom was a phenomena never to be repeated again and remains one of the foremost U.K. music movements of all.
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