Blues Incorporated

Cyril Davies and Alexis Koerner

Cyril "Squirrel" Davies: harmonica, banjo, vocals b. 1932; d. 7 January 1964, London Alexis Korner: guitar, vocals b. Alexis Koerner; 19 April 1928; Paris, France; d. 1 January 1984; London Alexis Korner and "Squirrel" Davies were the de facto stepparents of the London blues movement. Their interest in American jazz and blues led them to play a role in the trad and skiffle fads of the 50s and the electric blues of the 60s. Although they quarreled often, together they laid the foundations for the British blues movement. Korner sponsored many of the musicians who became much better known than him. His apartment in Bayswater was where American bluesmen stayed when they came to play engagements he had arranged. He also sheltered young British musicians interested in the blues when they first moved to London (e.g., Brian Jones).

Similarly, Davies nurtured young musicians, sometimes giving them instruments to help them become better performers. Both of them shaped the musical tastes of some of the best-known British musicians of the sixties.

1930   [AK 11-12]

Koerner and his Greek/Turkish & Austrian parents moved to the UK at beginning of WWII.

1947   [AK 18-19]

While stationed in W. Germany, Korner works on the radio as an announcer and listens to American R&B broadcasts from an NATO Air base.

1948   [AK 19-20] Korner began playing with a blues group that was part of the Chris Barber Jazz Band, filling in for Lonnie Donegan while he was in the National Service. Korner picked up jobs at the corners of Windmill and Archer Streets and also played at the Club Eleven, which opened in December of this year (Shapiro 1996: 42). He had a semi-acoustic Hofner, but played without an amplifier.

Korner: Nobody could ever hear me in the band, but they all convinced themselves they could feel me. We used to do a half-hour set of R&B — "race blues" it was called then — a piano [Dave Stevens], guitar, bass [Barber], drums [Brian Laws] set-up — like the Tampa Red and Bill Broonzy Chicago sessions on Bluebird in the late thirties and early forties. I was given the mike and I used to do single string and people would say, "What's that funny stuff you played in the middle? (Shapiro, 40)

1950   [CD 17-18]

Cyril Davies (an auto-body "panel beater") begins his blues career playing banjo in trad bands. He preferred playing 12-stringed guitar in the style of Leadbelly, but eventually, he starts playing harmonica and singing.   1954   [CD 21-22; AK 25-26] Korner and Davies open a skiffle club on Wardour Street, Soho. Korner around this time turns down offer to join the Vipers.

1955   [CD 22-23; AK 26-27]

They work with various skiffle and blues groups. They close their skiffle club and re-open as the Blues and Barrelhouse Club (a room of the Round House pub, also on Wardour). They feature American blues artists such "Big" Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, many of whom stay with Korner and family (Bayswater).

1961   [CD 28-29, AK 32-33]

Davies and Koerner try electric blues after hearing Muddy Waters . . . , and are ejected by the Roundhouse (Soho).

1962   [CD 29-30, AK 33-34]

17 March: Korner and Davies form Blues Incorporated as an outlet for their musical interests and include at various times Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Brian Jones, Long John Baldry, Paul Jones, Graham Bond, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Eric Burdon, and Ginger Baker.

Audiences who imagined themselves to be purists insisted that "real" blues performances were acoustic. These audiences had impressed this on American performers such as Muddy Waters by rejecting him as an electric musician. His return tour in the late 50s was acoustic. However, by the early 1960s, Blues Incorporated began performing electric blues and eventually their landlords on Wardour Street evict them. They moved their club out to the western suburbs and established the Ealing [Blues] Club (downstairs from the ABC tearooms, opposite Ealing Broadway tube station). However, one of the places in Soho where they could still play was the Marquee where they recorded and album, R&B at the Marquee. Gradually, radio programs, such as the BBC's Band Beat, began to accept performances of tunes already in the trad tradition such as "Everything She Needs."

Right, Dick Heckstall-Smith (sax), Alexis Korner (guitar), Jack Bruce (bass), Mick Jagger (vocals) and Cyril Davies (harmonica). (Not pictured is Dave Stevens who is on the far left playing piano.)

1963   [CD 30-31]

This year, as the Beatles and other "pop" groups storm the British charts, off-shoots of Blues Incorporated (such as the Rolling Stones) begin to gain wider attention. However, long-simmering differences between Davies and Koerner finally result with the blues purist leaving to form the Cyril Davies Rhythm and Blues All Stars.   See Harry Shapiro. Alexis Korner: The Biography. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 1996. CyrilDavies.com   Left: Graham Bond, Alexis Korner, Ginger Baker, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Dave Stevens, and Jack Bruce.]

Rhythm and Blues All Stars	Schedule	The Rolling Stones
	27-Feb-2012