Alexis Korner

Information about Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner (born Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner, 19 April 1928 in Paris, France - died on 1 January 1984 in Westminster, London, England)

Korner is probably best remembered as "the Founding Father of British Blues" and a pioneering blues musician. A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s[1], Korner was instrumental in bringing together various English blues musicians.

Early career

Alexis Korner was born to an Austrian father and Greek mother[2], and spent his childhood in France, Switzerland, and North Africa. He arrived in London in 1940 at the start of the Second World War. One memory of his youth was listening to a record by Jimmy Yancey during a German air raid. He said, "From then on all I wanted to do was play the blues."[3]

After the war, he played piano and guitar, and in 1949 joined Chris Barber's Jazz Band where he met blues harmonica player Cyril Davies. They started playing together as a duo, formed the influential London Blues and Barrelhouse Club in 1955, and made their first record together in 1957. Korner brought many American blues artists, previously unknown in England, to perform.

The 1960s

In 1961, Korner and Davies formed Blues Incorporated, initially a loose-knit group of musicians with a shared love of electric blues and R&B music. The group included, at various times, such influential musicians as Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, Graham Bond, Danny Thompson and Dick Heckstall-Smith. It also attracted a wider crowd of mostly younger fans, some of whom occasionally performed with the group, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Rod Stewart, John Mayall and Jimmy Page. One story is that the Rolling Stones went to stay at Korner's house late one night, in the early 1960s, after a performance. They entered in the accepted way, by climbing in through the kitchen window, to find Muddy Waters' band sleeping on the kitchen floor.

See main article : Blues Incorporated


Although Cyril Davies left the group in 1963, Blues Incorporated continued to record, with Korner at the helm, until 1966. However, by that time its originally stellar line-up and crowd of followers had mostly left to start their own bands. "While his one-time acolytes the Rolling Stones and Cream made the front pages of music magazines all over the world, Korner was relegated to the role of "elder statesman.""[4]

Although he himself was a blues purist - Korner criticised better-known British blues musicians, during the blues boom of the late '60s, for their blind adherence to Chicago blues, as if the music came in no other form - he liked to surround himself with jazz musicians and often performed with a horn section drawn from a pool which included, among others, saxophone players Art Themen, Mel Collins, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Dick Morrissey, John Surman and trombonist Mike Zwerin.

In the 1960s Korner began a media career, initially as a show business interviewer and then on ITV's Five O'Clock Club, a children's TV show. He also wrote about blues for the music papers, and continued his performing career especially in Europe. While touring Scandinavia he first joined forces with singer Peter Thorup, together forming the band New Church, who were one of the support bands at the Rolling Stones Free Concert at Hyde Park on 5 July 1969.

It is said that Jimmy Page found out about a new singer, Robert Plant, who had been jamming with Korner, who wondered why Plant had not yet been discovered. Plant, Korner, and Steve Miller were in the process of recording a full album with Plant on vocals until Page had asked him to join "the New Yardbirds", aka Led Zeppelin. Only two songs are in circulation of these recordings: "Steal Away" and "Operator".

The 1970s and 1980s

In 1970 Korner and Thorup formed a big band ensemble, C.C.S. - short for The Collective Consciousness Society - which had several hit singles produced by Mickie Most, including a version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" which was used as the theme for BBC's Top Of The Pops for several years. This was the period of Korner's greatest commercial success in the UK.

See main article : C.C.S.


In 1973, he formed another group, Snape, with Boz Burrell, Mel Collins, and Ian Wallace, previously together in King Crimson. Korner also played on B.B. King's Supersession album, and cut his own, similar album, Get Off My Cloud, with Keith Richards, Peter Frampton, Nicky Hopkins, and members of Joe Cocker's Grease Band.

In the mid 1970s, while touring Germany, he established an intensive working relationship with bassist Colin Hodgkinson who played for the support act Back Door. They would continue to collaborate until the end.

In the 1970s Korner's main career was in broadcasting. In 1973 he presented a unique 6-part documentary on BBC Radio 1, The Rolling Stones Story[5], and in 1977 he established a weekly blues and soul show on Radio 1, which ran until 1981. He also used his gravelly voice to great effect as an advertising voice over artist.

In 1978, for Korner's 50th birthday, an all-star concert was held featuring many of his friends mentioned above, as well as Eric Clapton, Paul Jones, Chris Farlowe, Zoot Money and other friends, which was later released as The Party Album, and as a video.

In 1981, he joined another "supergroup", Rocket 88, a project led by Ian Stewart based around boogie-woogie keyboard players, which featured a rhythm section comprising Jack Bruce and Charlie Watts, among others, as well as a horn section. They toured Europe and released an album on Atlantic Records.

Alexis Korner, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer on January 1, 1984, aged 55.[6]

References

1. ^ Korner, a pioneer and influential musician [1] retrieved 26/08/07
2. ^ [2]
3. ^ [3]
4. ^ [4]
5. ^ [5] retrieved 26/08/07
6. ^ [6] retrieved 26/08/07

Other references

Alexis Korner: The Biography, written by Harry Shapiro and including a wonderful discography by Mark Troster, was published in 1997.

Audio

An excerpt from the C. C. S. version of "Whole Lotta Love"
Problems listening to the file? See media help

Selected UK discography (LPs unless otherwise stated)

  • Ken Colyer's Skiffle Group: Back to the Delta (Decca, 1954)
  • Alexis Korner's Breakdown Group Featuring Cyril Davis (sic.) (77, 1957)
  • Alexis Korner Skiffle Group: Blues from the Roundhouse Vol. 1 (Tempo, 1957) - EP
  • Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated: Blues from the Roundhouse Vol. 2 (Tempo, 1958) - EP
  • R&B From the Marquee (Decca, 1962)
  • Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated (Decca, 1963)
  • At the Cavern (Oriole, 1964)
  • Red Hot From Alex (Transatlantic, 1964)
  • Sky High (Spot, 1966)
  • I Wonder Who (Fontana, 1967)
  • A New Generation of Blues (Liberty, 1968)
  • Both Sides (Metronome, 1970) - GERMANY only
  • Alexis Korner (Rak, 1971)
  • Bootleg Him (Rak, 1972)
  • Accidentally Born in New Orleans (Transatlantic, 1972)
  • Live On Tour in Germany (Brain, 1973) - GERMANY only
  • Alexis Korner (Polydor, 1974) - GERMANY only
  • Get Off Of My Cloud (CBS, 1975)
  • Live in Paris (1976)
  • Just Easy (1978)
  • The Party Album (1979)
  • Me (1980)
  • Juvenile Delinquent (1984)
  • Testament (1985)

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Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that most often follows a twelve-bar structure. It emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants,
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James Edwards "Jimmy" Yancey (February 20, 1898 - September 17, 1951) was an African American pianist, composer, and lyricist, most noted for his pianowork in the boogie woogie style.
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Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber (born April 17, 1930 at Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England) is best known as a trombonist playing in his Trad revivals with his Dixieland jazz band.
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Cyril Davies (23 January 1932 - January 7, 1964) was one of the first English blues harmonica players and blues musician.

Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, Davies began his career in the early 1950s first within
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Blues Incorporated was a British R&B band in the early 1960s, which was led by Alexis Korner and which featured at various times such musicians as Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, Danny Thompson, Graham Bond, Cyril Davies, and Dick Heckstall-Smith.
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Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists.
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John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce (born May 14, 1943) is a Scottish-born musician, composer and singer. He is best-known as an electric bassist, harmonicist and pianist, and was most famous as a vocalist and the bassist for the 1960s rock band Cream. He lives in Essex, England.
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Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (born August 19, 1939, Lewisham, South London) is an English drummer who gained fame as a member of the Graham Bond Organization (GBO) and Cream from 1966 until 1968.
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John William Baldry, popularly known as Long John Baldry, (January 12, 1941 – July 21, 2005) was a blues singer from England. He sang with many notable British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry at various stages of the 1960s.
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Graham John Clifton Bond (28 October, 1937 in Romford, East London, England – 8 May, 1974 at Finsbury Park station, Finsbury Park, North London, England) was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.
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Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson (born 4 April 1939) is an English double bass player. He has had a long musical career playing with a large variety of other musicians, particularly Richard Thompson (no relation) and John Martyn, but including many others: at various times has
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Dick Heckstall-Smith (September 16, 1934 – December 17, 2004) was an English jazz and blues saxophonist.

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Sir Michael Phillip "Mick" Jagger (born July 26, 1943) is an English rock musician, actor, songwriter, record and film producer and businessman. He is one of the world's most famous celebrities, best known as the frontman of the rock band The Rolling Stones.
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Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English guitarist, songwriter, singer, producer and founding member of The Rolling Stones. With songwriting partner and Stones lead vocalist Mick Jagger, he has written and recorded hundreds of songs.
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