Without Alexis Korner, there still might have been a British blues scene in the early 1960s, but chances are that it would have been very different from the one that spawned the Rolling Stones, nurtured the early talents of Eric Clapton, and made it possible for figures such as John Mayall to reach an audience. Born of mixed Turkish/Greek/Austrian descent, Korner spent the first decade of his life in France, Switzerland, and North Africa, and arrived in London in May of 1940, just in time for the German blitz, during which Korner discovered American blues. One of the most vivid memories of his teen years was listening to a record of bluesman Jimmy Yancey during a German air raid. "From then on," he recalled in an interview, "all I wanted to do was play the blues."
A two part collection of twenty acoustic covers done by Jon Crosby, of VAST, as a tribute to some of his favorite musicians who have passed away, and their music.
Serving to embrace the floral heavens of British pop, this edition combines the first ten prized volumes of the acclaimed Piccadilly Sunshine series, originally released from 2009 to 2012. Celebrating the obscured artifacts of illustrious noise that emerged from the Great British psychedelic era and beyond, it is the essential guide to the quintessential sound of candy-colored pop from a bygone age. Includes over 200 tracks from 1964-1971, with an enhanced bonus disc containing rare tracks and images. Includes 84-page full-color booklet with rare photos, detailed biographies, and full discographies.
Released in 2015, Grapefruit’s 3-CD multi-artist British underground folk compilation Dust On The Nettles was widely praised, with a five-star review in The Times hailing it as “a delight from beginning to end”. A long-overdue follow up to that set, Sumer Is Icumen In tightens the mesh by focusing on the point when traditional folksong and the burgeoning late Sixties counterculture collided, largely courtesy of seminal acts like the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention and Pentangle.