British blues

British blues, early to mid-1960s musical movement based in London clubs that was an important influence on the subsequent rock explosion. Its founding fathers included the guitarist Alexis Korner (b. April 19, 1928, Paris, France—d. January 1, 1984, London, England) and the harmonica player Cyril Davies (b. 1932, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England—d. January 7, 1964, England), who played together in Blues Incorporated and passed on the influence of such heroes of Chicago’s urban electric blues as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf to a generation of younger musicians. Some of these, notably the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, quickly found success in the pop charts, but the next wave, led by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, pleased their audiences by following a stricter agenda, modeling their music on the legendary guitarists B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King (who shared the same last name but are unrelated). As a self-contained form, British blues ended when Jimi Hendrix arrived from the United States to show local musicians the folly of their purist attitudes. Nevertheless, its legacy survived and flourished in the growing international heavy metal movement, a style built largely on a simplification of the loud, distorted riffing of the British blues guitarists.