The British Blues Network by Andrew Kellett

Author:Andrew Kellett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Call-and-Response: The Influence of American “Blues Brothers”

One of the British blues network’s many remarkable qualities was its relative absorbency—its ability to welcome outsiders into the discursive and performative activity of the group. The temptation to maintain the network as a secretive clique—what a recent BBC documentary about British blues called “a hip Masonic lodge”—must have existed.141 And when the matter of employment arose, either in new bands or in existing ones with a personnel vacancy, the network functioned somewhat as a guild; if you were a known quantity within the network, you would be considered for a slot. However, as long as jobs were not on the line, blues enthusiasts by and large did not give others the cold shoulder but instead welcomed them on the basis of shared credentials as “hands-on preservationists.” Londoners were even generally able to welcome northerners, and, given the historic mutual disdain between northerners and southerners throughout England’s history, this is indeed somewhat remarkable.142 The blues network generally operated on a “the more, the merrier” footing; the more members in the network, the more people there would be to argue, debate, and sharpen your ideas with. Furthermore, this policy increased the audition pool for your band’s soon to be open guitarist slot and provided more people from whom to “nick” promising musical ideas!

By the mid-1960s, in the wake of “Beatlemania,” the geographic scope for meeting like-minded hands-on preservationists with whom to continue the project of creativity, collaboration, and competition was vastly widened. British blues and R&B bands (e.g., the Rolling Stones and Animals in 1964, the Yardbirds in 1965, and the Who in 1967) began performing in the United States, which was enormously influential in their continued development as musicians and interpreters of American culture. Up to this point, British blues and rock musicians had been fascinated with American culture generally, and African-American culture specifically, from afar. Now they were actually seeing the “real” America, interacting with real Americans, and eating real American fast food.

The other major way in which actually going to America influenced British musicians was in their personal interactions with American musicians. Initially, London blues enthusiasts had welcomed northern enthusiasts into their circle and found their discussions and musical directions deepened. The same thing happened again when the “British invaders” came face-to-face with black and white American musicians. They learned not only that their original assessment of white Americans as knowing nothing about the blues was wrong, but also that some white Americans were better (or at least comparable) hands-on preservationists than they. Three North American acts in particular—Bob Dylan, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the Band—influenced and were influenced by British rock musicians from 1964 to 1970.143 In some cases, the British took the opportunities these three acts posed to reconsider what they themselves were doing musically. This formed part of the foundation of the creative rock music made by both British and American groups operating more in dialogue.

Dylan’s impact on the British blues network lay in his expansion of blues-based rock music’s capacity for lyrical sophistication and artistry.

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