Alexis Korner

CD pressing of this 1972 album from the British Blues great. Alexis Korner, along with John Mayall, could be called the "father of British Blues". Even though he himself is not necessarily a well known name, he helped launch the careers of many top Rock and Blues stars from the 1960s. Bootleg Him! is a 20 track collection of odds & ends from his early career. Musicians appearing with Alexis on this album include Robert Plant, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Charlie Watts, Graham Bond, Paul Rodgers, Andy Fraser, the list goes on and on.

The group is still called Blues Incorporated, but without Cyril Davies or Long John Baldry, who were present on the first record. Recording at Liverpool's Cavern Club was more a gimmick than anything else, and the music is not as well made or exciting as the group's first album. This record shows Alexis Korner's more big-band type blues work, favoring horns. At the Cavern was a good album, but not one that was going to make much noise amid the work of the Rolling Stones, the Animals, or the Yardbirds. Originally released in 1964, At the Cavern was reissued on CD in 2006 and includes bonus tracks.

Although his name may not be as instantly recognizable stateside as Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin, Alexis Korner played an enormously large role in helping launch the British blues explosion of the '60s. After all, such soon-to-be household names as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ginger Baker, and Robert Plant either recorded with Korner, or credit the singer/guitarist as an early inspiration to follow their blues calling. The double-disc. 40-plus-track Kornerstoned: The Anthology 1954-1983 chronicles Korner's entire recording career, from Alexis Korner Skiffle Group in the early '50s, to fronting various bands later in the '50s and throughout the '60s (as Alex Korner's Blues Incorporated, Alex Korner's Blues All Stars, etc.), all of which are included here…

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."

Alexis Koerner was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s, Korner was instrumental in bringing together various English blues musicians. 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.