SLOW TRAIN COMIN’

Recordings marking the blues’ growth in the UK

American Folk Blues Festival Live In Manchester 1962 (Rhythm and Blues RANDB 059, CD, UK, 2020) £10

ABC TV filmed the second show at the Free Trade Hall and broadcast it on their Tempo arts programme. These recordings were taped directly on to a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The tracks feature Sonny Terry & Brownie Mcghee, Memphis Slim, T Bone Walker and Willie Dixon.

American Folk Blues

Festival 1963

(Fontana TL 5204, LP,

UK, 1964) £25

The original vinyl album was later reissued on

CD by L+R and features Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann, Big Joe Williams, Matt Murphy and Billy Stepney. Recorded live in Bremen, Germany, October 1963.

The Blues Of Otis

Spann (Decca LK

4615, LP, UK, 1964)

£70

Produced by Mike

Vernon in London with

Muddy Waters’ pianist

Otis Spann, with Muddy on guitar disguised in the album notes as ‘Brother’. The CD version includes extra tracks, one of which is Pretty Girls Everywhere with Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton overdubbed on guitars and harmonica.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live In Paris, 1964 (France’s Concert FCD 118, CD, Fr, 1988) £12

This late eighties release contains seven sides by Sister Rosetta Tharpe with Otis Spann, Ransom Knowling and Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith recorded on 12 May, five days after the Manchester railway station recording with five sides recorded for radio in October 1964 with a trad jazz outfit.

Bluesbreakers –

John Mayall With

Eric Clapton (Decca

LK 4804, LP, UK, original label, mono)

£150

Originally recorded in

May 1966 and reissued on CD with mono and stereo versions and additional tracks on a 40th Anniversary Deluxe edition, the original album was a commercial success, making No 6 on the UK album chart. Rolling Stone has it at No 195 on their list of the 500 Great Albums Of All Time.