THE BLUES ROCK BOOM

After the Delta bluesers gave us the roots of rock, new generations took the blues and with it turned the nascent popular music scene on its head.

‘The blues had a baby,’ goes the old Muddy Waters line, ‘and they named it rock’n’roll.’ By the early 60s, though, the family tree had started to get incestuous, as the scratchy, haunting Delta porch songs of yore were hijacked on both sides of the Atlantic by a new strain of blues that applied speed, attitude, volume and chest hair. Blues had met rock. And it was the start of a beautiful relationship.

Conventional wisdom tells us that blues rock peaked in the mid-to-late 60s. And it’s a watertight argument: from that five-year period alone came world-shaking albums from icons including Cream, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Peter Green’s original Fleetwood Mac. If you don’t remember the 60s, then you probably weren’t there…

As the decade drew to a close, the blues-fuelled energy of the mod clubs of the early 60s had drifted, and all-night dancing had been replaced by a laid-back, dope-smoking vibe. Key players such as John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Peter Green reached a crossroads in their careers, as the blues scene split between purists and those taking the path towards out and out rock. Meanwhile, the likes of Free, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull took their first steps towards 70s greatness.

Over the next few pages we take a look at some of those British, Irish and American heroes who took the blues, made it their own and turned it into the full-throttle rock that we know today: from the rough-edged 70s swagger of Rory Gallagher (pictured), to Jimmy Page telling us how his love of the blues informed Led Zeppelin’s dazzling career (that last one’s a surprise, right?), to ZZ Top putting their strain of Texas blues firmly on the map with the story of their classic Tres Hombres album.

Many rock sub-genres blossom but then wither on the vine. Others are simply cynical media inventions, coined to lump disparate acts into an editorial-friendly pigeonhole. Blues rock is different. Unlike, say, ‘acid-folk’ or ‘prog-jazz’, the two ingredients are co-dependent, joined at the hip in both sentiment and musical content.

“No matter what direction rock goes in, it has to stay with the blues,” Eric Clapton once said, “because that’s the spine and body of it.” And he should know.