Mecca Woods

Four-hour, 3CD anthology of hard-edged British R&B from the genre's pivotal year. Featuring hit singles, key album tracks, cult classics and some fabulous previously unreleased recordings. While 1963 belonged to the Merseyside-led beat boom, the following year saw the emergence of homegrown R&B as market leaders The Rolling Stones were joined on the Thames Delta by a host of equally young, raw and enthusiastic British blues-hounds. The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann would all come to national prominence, but many other putative king bees - The Artwoods, Downliners Sect, early Ronnie Wood outfit The Birds - would have to settle for a more localised audience. Other hard-up heroes trying to pay the rent included The Who (as The High Numbers), Steve Marriott (as leader of The Moments) and Rod 'The Mod' Stewart (with The Hoochie Coochie Men), who all gave early notice of their developing talent to an indifferent world.