Got My Mojo Working
Billy, Fabrizio, Kenny, Serge and Kris on their ultimate blues heroes...
Billy: “Hound Dog Taylor was off the chart! His band were like a punk group, they just didn’t care and there were no rules. I read a really good piece about them recently, where the writer said, ‘Just thinking about the word blues gives me a headache… if I see one more band with baggy suits, big microphones and funny hats, I’ll lose my mind – give me Hound Dog Taylor on his worst night and that will be better than anyone!’ And I completely agreed.” Kris: “Obviously, there are all the older guys like Robert Johnson who started it all off, but Gary Moore was my first proper introduction to the blues. I started playing at five or six years old because my dad was a guitar player and I had access to his records. We had this VHS tape of Gary doing Stormymonday in London and it hit me instantly. I was six years old and I needed to find out more about what I was hearing.”
Kenny: “Growing up, all the southern rock stuff like ZZ Top and Allman Brothers was huge for me… I actually had a band growing up where all we did was Allman Brothers covers! Duane was incredible, though to be honest, in my eyes it’s all the real deal. I’ve played with BB King, Buddy Guy and so many other greats... it’s amazing how many different variations of the blues you can find out there.” Serge: “Like Kris, Gary Moore had a massive influence on me. But most of all, I think Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin had a huge effect. Sure, it was more of a rock thing, but there’s so much blues in that early stuff.”
Fabrizio: “I don’t think anyone else out there represents the traditional folk element of the blues as well as Hubert Sumlin. He was the conjunction between whatever was before Robert Johnson to the three Kings to Hendrix – and then look at everything that happened afterwards. Without Hubert, there would be no Hendrix and without Hendrix, things would have been very different.”
“WITHOUT HUBERT THERE WOULD BE NO HENDRIX... AND THINGS WOULD BE VERY DIFFERENT”