Alexis Jones

Alexis Korner passed away on January 1st, 1984, and June 5th of that year saw a small fraction of his friends and his band’s alumni pay homage to the godfather of British blues by staging a stellar performance in, of all places, Nottingham. Calling themselves ALEXIS LIGHT ORCHESTRA and led by Jimmy Page, the supergroup also featured such luminaries as Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts and Paul Jones whose mix of rhythm-and-blues and rock numbers was recorded for radio broadcast and well-bootlegged, yet never officially released.

Alexis Korner passed away on January 1st, 1984, and June 5th of that year saw a small fraction of his friends and his band’s alumni pay homage to the godfather of British blues by staging a stellar performance in, of all places, Nottingham. Calling themselves ALEXIS LIGHT ORCHESTRA and led by Jimmy Page, the supergroup also featured such luminaries as Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts and Paul Jones whose mix of rhythm-and-blues and rock numbers was recorded for radio broadcast and well-bootlegged, yet never officially released.

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."