VIDEO
CNN WorldBeat's Steven Wright looks at the blues in Brittania
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July 26, 1999
Web posted at: 5:13 p.m. EDT (2113 GMT)

From Steven Wright
CNN WorldBeat Correspondent

(CNN) -- If you can hear the blues influence in the work of Eric Clapton, then you may already have guessed that this American-born music form migrated across the Atlantic and infiltrated the British music scene.

In fact, the 1960s were golden years for British blues, as bands like the Rolling Stones and The Animals imported the blues and shipped out their own take on the genre during the British (musical) invasion of America. According to Bruce Iglaeur, president of Alligator Records, "Blues actually got a lot of recognition in Europe before it was recognized as an art form in the States.

"Back in the '60s and even the '50s," Iglaeur says, "when blues was strictly in the black community (in the United States), blues artists were going to Europe and playing in concert halls. Muddy Waters was in England in 1958."

And each region of England did its own thing with the blues sound. British bluesman John Mayall says he represented "what came from Manchester; Stevie Winwood and Spencer Davis were the Birmingham contingent and then from the North we had The Animals, Eric Burdon -- and further up north was the Alex Harvey Band from Scotland. We all converged on London, we all had our own different styles, and it just became the London melting pot, really."