BLUES INCORPORATED

SKY HIGH: Alexis and Duffy blow away the London Blues

This is a real gem of British blues and one of Alexis Korner's best recordings. Recorded in 1965 with a much changed line-up from earlier sessions here we have Duffy Power and Alexis sharing vocal duties backed up by Danny Thompson and Terry Cox. Duffy sings on four tracks and plays harp throughout. For me this is British blues at its finest. Lo-fi and plaintive, the sound of the coffee bars and the night buses. Alan Skidmore and Chris Pyne bring a jazz feel that is always modern and tasteful. The title refers to the studio's location above a chemist in South Moulton St, at that time a hub of weed dealing. Producer Jack Winsley is one of the forgotten heroes of the British independents in the 1960s working with Mike Berry and Slade among others.

Here is the story of the sessions from Neil Slaven's liner notes to the reissue

and here is the story of its various releases

Get the LP  here  BONUS Chris Jagger tells the story of Alexis Korner for BBC Radio in three parts 1, 2, 3

Glimmer Twins Breakdown on Wardour Street

The Stones rock the Marquee Club in 1971

a cool video that recently came out of hibernation

FIRST CLASS TICKETS

The hippest numbers in town

You gotta love this film footage of the High Numbers, soon to become the 'oo, playing to a heavy mod crowd at the Railway Hotel, Richmond, with cool footage of some hot steppin' young modernists, twisting and turning to their fave beat combo. 

JOHNNY THUNDERS ROCKS THE STRAND

Waterloo Bridge was shakin too

Johnny owned the Lyceum in 1984. First up he played in October 1983. Support was Jayne County who had just recently become fully Jayne. I remember he/she took its shirt off onstage to reveal some barely healed surgery scars. Jayne was great though. I can still hear her doing the spacey electronic riffs of Berlin from that night and of course "If you don't want to fuck me". Johnny was really on fantastic form, maybe one of the best shows i saw him play, pulling "little Patti muppet" on stage for Great Big Kiss and Peter Perrett for Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory. How great was it when less than six months later Johnny comes back with the original Heartbreakers. They should have rolled a red carpet down the Strand. This was the first time in a few years that the full line up had played.

Johnny and Jerry and Walter and Billy rocked righteously and a great night was had by all. Even so the strange thing was that in fact the October show was slightly better. Well that was my memory at the time although when they cleaned up the tapes and released it as a live album it sounded pretty damn good. Just goes to show what one's expectations were back then. JT could come out have a fix, fall asleep on stage and still blow away most of todays bands with time to spare. And now here we are in the digital age and there is film of the show on YouTube. I am still trying to spot myself and my pals in the crowd. I think everyone I knew was there. I'm sure I taped it myself too. Yes my war against the music industry had already begun.

Now someone is trying to sell a ticket stub for $20 on EBay and $100 for the October show. I never throw away ticket stubs now. Its just too late.