British Blues: American export finds a home in England

" You sort of let yourself go in America. We're too reserved in Britain. "

Heather Gates

Peter Sharp and his son, also named Peter, arrived at the Academy concert hall in Birmingham by early evening, well in time for the 9 p.m. B.B. King concert. Yes, they knew they had time to spare. But it was a cold and rainy evening, and they had to allow extra time for the hour's drive north from Bristol.

That's the way it goes in England. One must always prepare for the advent of cloudy skies or chilling rains.

But this night, neither rain nor slippery motorways kept the father and son from seeing the blues king; The man who, to many in Britain, epitomizes the genre of music they've come to know through CDs, books and concerts.

Slowly, the crowd inside the Academy begins to swell. All arrive carrying umbrellas, heavy and dripping with water. Some are dressed in jeans. Others, like the senior Sharp, wear casual tweed blazers and pants, a sweater and tie. One or two fans sport a B.B. King's Blues Club T-shirt from Memphis.

What is it about this music that compels thousands of British music fans to travel hundreds of miles to hear and see it in real-life terms? The blues is, after all, a phenomenon from a place deep inside the United States. It's raw, howling and intense, full of all kinds of provocation. If you listen long enough, the music beckons you to yearn for lost loves or get up and shake the madness from you. Certainly, the blues doesn't speak of British restraint.

Listen closer, however, and soon you'll hear the connection that's united for decades blues fans living on both sides of the Atlantic. Britain and the United States, in fact, long have "bartered" the music, trading the sound onto which each side has put its own indelible, albeit curious, stamp upon the blues.

It was from this exchange that the United States received the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Rod Stewart (even Birmingham, England-based Black Sabbath) in the 1960s and '70s. Still today, we send to Britain the best-of-the-best, including the old and the new, who continue to define blues music for the world.

The elder Sharp, by now dry and eager to share his opinion with someone who hails from Memphis, readily admits the blues is a music owned only by those who have lived in the Mississippi Delta. Even Eric Clapton (who has been acknowledged as one of the most influential and talented blues players from Britain) and early Rolling Stones music can't capture the true spirit of the blues. It's a location thing, he says.

"The Negroes had that sadness. No one can imitate their musical sound. They could do the maximum with the minimum in that what they didn't have (in musical instruments) they were still able to make sounds," Sharp explains.

Indeed, Sharp's life story sounds much like a typical blues song. As a child, he says he never celebrated Christmas or his birthday; he finally left home at 15. "I suppose you don't know how to be happy until you've been sad. You can't appreciate it until you have nothing," he says.

As the 67-year-old tells his story, he becomes more passionate and animated in his gestures, much as blues musicians do when they tell their life stories through songs.

Sharp's son, though he never faced hardships, still listens to blues music. "I was weaned on it," the younger Sharp says. He "mucks around" on the guitar with his father and listens to several British jazz musicians, such as Chris Barber. Either he doesn't like to talk as much as his father, or he doesn't share the same passion for blues; either way, the young man walks away quickly from the discussion. Blues Across the Pond

About 3,500 fans pack Birmingham's Academy auditorium. B.B. clearly is a favorite among British blues fans. He's about a half-hour late, due to a traffic jam, uncooperative weather and road construction. The crowd's anticipation is keen.

Finally, B.B. takes the stage. His fans respond with hearty applause. As he moves through his set, they remain in their seats, showing barely a nod or tapping leg. They clap after each song and a few shouts can be heard from the rafters. A teenage couple on the back row of the main floor, who have clearly enjoyed too much ale, are the only visible signs the crowd really likes what it hears.

"You sort of let yourself go in America," says Birmingham resident Rory Fuoco of the difference between American and British blues fans. "We're too reserved in Britain."

Throughout his set, B.B., always the consummate performer, almost cajoles the audience into responding. "Tonight's my last night in your beautiful country," B.B. tells the crowd, which responds with applause.

He continues, explaining why he was late. "There was an accident down on the motorway, don't know how you say that here. It sho' was hurtin' me (to be late). But I hope no one (in the accident) was hurt."

No matter King's antics, the crowd isn't as lively as it might be in the States. Instead, one gets the sense they're listening more intently, trying to learn about and capture - if only for a fleeting moment - all the blues offers.

"We're quieter but more appreciative (of the music)," says Linda Stone, a resident of Keys Winford, a small town near Sturbridge. "It's so earthy, truthful and down-to-earth."

Fuoco had to see King live. "Why miss the chance?" he says. Although he admits that you "take your mickey" (get some good-natured ribbing) from friends when you favor music other than rock, it's well worth the teasing. "Rock (music), like Black Sabbath, is popular here; if you like something else, a lot of people won't admit it," Fuoco, who attended the concert alone, says.

Blues music always has been "somewhat popular" in Britain, he adds, but feels it needs to be better promoted. "Most people don't know about B.B. I tell them he's the fellow from Memphis, the blues fellow."

Fuoco wore a B.B. King's Blues Club T-shirt, a vestige from his trip to Nashville and Memphis a few years ago. As he's a fan of Johnny Cash he first traveled to Nashville, but he couldn't pass on a trip to the home of the blues. His four-hour trip west, Fuoco says, was "like going through a curtain."

"It's like another world (going from Nashville to Memphis). Seeing the black people, noticing how different it was. Its (Memphis) still got old traditions, and the discrimination is still there. I feel it," Fuoco says.

His Memphis trip also helped him realize why he loves blues and why it appeals to a diverse audience. "It all comes from early roots...This is the feeling music. Everyone now is talking about love," Fuoco says. The Beginning in Britain

Blues and rock 'n' roll first washed onto Britain's shores in the postwar 1940s and early '50s, when budding British "musicians" listened to radios and records, hearing the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and Elvis. Almost immediately, the pulsating rhythm of rock 'n' roll and the intoxicating blues sound tugged hard at their guitar strings.

In the biography, Crossroads: the Life and Music of Eric Clapton, Clapton remembers first hearing the blues: "There was a funny Saturday-morning radio program for children, with this strange person, Uncle Mac," he said. "He'd play things like 'Mule Train' and then every week he'd slip in something like a Buddy Holly record or a Chuck Berry record. And the first blues I ever heard was on that program."

It was Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. "It blew me away," Clapton says.

Clapton eventually dropped out of Kingston Art College, located on the southern outskirts of London, to pursue his career as a blues musician in bands like the Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and Cream.

Although he's expanded his musical repertoire since then and has achieved international fame, Clapton still holds firm to his blues roots.

About the same time as Clapton was breaking into the London blues circuit, a young Mike Jagger (who would later change his first name to Mick) was nothing more than a "blues enthusiast," traveling from his home in Dartford to the London School of Economics.

His meeting of Keith Richards, which would lead to a legendary partnership that would later become the Rolling Stones, is told by author Bob Brunning, in his book, Blues, The British Connection: "Legend has it that when Keith got in the same train compartment one morning, Mike was impressed by the pile of Chuck Berry and Little Walter albums tucked under Keith Richard's arm. Mike Jagger lost little time in inviting Keith to come along and rehearse with the band that was currently performing in (mutual friend) Dick Taylor's front room, Little Boy Blue and the Blues Boys."

Jagger and Richards also would play together in another blues band, Blues Incorporated, along with guitarist Brian Jones (an original Stones member who died in1969 in the pool of his home after an apparent drug overdose.)

By the early 1960s, the group had become the Rolling Stones (after the Muddy Waters classic), comprised of Jagger, Richards, Jones, Taylor and Ian Stewart. Charlie Watts, who was in great demand as a drummer in other blues bands around London, and Bill Perks (who later changed his last name to Wyman) joined the band later.

Eventually, Stewart left the band (but often served quietly as "the sixth Stone" in an advisory role and playing piano), and Taylor who "believed the band was getting nowhere" quit.

A young Rod Stewart also was floating around London during this time, playing in several blues bands, including Long John Baldry's Hoochie Coochie Men. Stewart also filled in on vocals with the Yardbirds, in which Eric Clapton played guitar.

Clapton, the Stones, Rod Stewart. Undeniably, they were intertwined in their early days, at times separating, but always coming back together - in one band or another - to play the music they had grown to love.

With success, however, was the lure to write, record and perform more "commercially appealing music" that would capture a larger audience. The Stones, especially Jagger and Richards, found they had the talent for writing highly commercial songs, Brunning writes. And in 1964, the Yardbirds, found their fame with the hit "For Your Love."

Manfred Mann, a British blues band popular in the 1960s, also found its crossover niche with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," which catapulted them to number one concurrently on the British and U.S. music charts. They continued to favor their blues music when they performed live, however, often opting to mix their "hits" into a fast-paced medley.

Increasingly, British bands that had achieved fame, both in Britain and the United States, found that it became increasingly difficult to hang on to the lesser-known blues music they once played.

That's why, three decades later, British bands and vocalists like Clapton and the Rolling Stones are known primarily by younger fans for their "pop hits," rather than their early work around the British blues circuit.

In the 1960s and '70s, American blues musicians, such as Lightnin' Slim and his partner Whisperin' Smith, and Sonny Boy Williamson, shared their special brand of blues in Britain, primarily through the efforts of two British music insiders: producer Mike Vernon and promoter Jim Simpson.

In 1972, Simpson organized the inaugural American Blues Legends tour, which was backed by several British blues bands. Again from Brunning's book: "The package was to consist of Lightnin' Slim, his partner Whisperin' Smith, Homesick James and Snooky Pryor and Boogie Woogie Red. Then Washboard Willie was added as a kind of novelty act, though Jim wasn't so amused when he arrived with his 250-pound wife. 'All that meat and no potatoes' as Lightnin' Slim described her."

The tour was so successful that a second Legends tour was organized soon afterward. It, too, included Whisperin' Smith and Lightnin' Slim, by now a favorite on the tour, Brunning writes. "Lightnin' was a wonderful character...He was an old-time bluesman who refused to fit the image and dressed in the most fashionable clothes he could find. The news that Lightnin' learned the blues in exactly the same way as many British musicians used to (listening to records ) unaccountably infuriated (British) journalists!" Does Britain still sing the blues today?

More than 30 years after the British invasion, which early American blues and rock 'n' roll legends initiated, there's still a steady undercurrent of blues music. As in the States, rock and "alternative" music continue to be the mainstream favorite, but blues still enjoys a strong following among loyal fans.

British bands continue to play steady gigs across the region. And American blues artists and bands still trek across the Atlantic to reassure the younger generation of British blues fans that, indeed, good blues is still coming out of the Delta.

Memphis' own Keith Brown (profiled in BlueSpeak's October issue), for example, toured Europe last fall, where his quiet, acoustic guitar work was better received by equally reticent blues fans.

Undoubtedly, fathers and sons, like Peter Sharp and his son, will continue "mucking about with guitars," listening to the blues and driving an hour in the rain to see world-renowned blues musicians. And if the number of families in attendance at B.B. King's Birmingham concert is an indication, the blues surely will thrive among future generations in Britain.

Indeed, the blues truly is universal in that it says something to everyone and makes us all feel sad sometimes.

"Blues music has the unique ability to talk through its instruments," Peter says. "I can identify with the sadness. It's sort of like a comfort. Like we're all in the same boat."