Soccer Moms and Road Ragers: Remedies to Curb Aggressive Driving. A one-off broadcast by Josh White while he was visiting Britain in 1951 was so popular that he was asked to perform for a series of programmes for the BBC, eventually titled The Glory Road and broadcast in 1952. Later that year, folk song collector Alan Lomax, then resident in London, produced a series of three programmes under the title The Art of the Negro, of last of which, “Blues in the Mississippi Night” featured folk blues recordings by artists including Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker and was the first introduction of many later followers of the blues to the music and hardships of life for African Americans in the Southern US. Imported recordings of American artists were brought over by African American servicemen stationed in Britain during and after World War II, merchant seamen visiting the ports of London, Liverpool, Newcastle on Tyne and Belfast, and in a trickle of (illegal) imports. From 1962 the American Folk Blues Festival, organised by German promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau, brought American blues stars including Waters, Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and John Lee Hooker to the country.

In the early 1960s, folk guitar pioneers Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and particularly Davy Graham, played blues, folk and jazz, developing a distinctive guitar style known as folk baroque. The British rhythm and blues scene developed in London out of the related jazz, skiffle and folk club scenes of the 1950s. The first of these scenes, that of jazz, had developed during the Second World War as a reaction to swing, consciously re-introducing older elements of American jazz, particularly that of New Orleans to produce trad jazz. From 1955 major British record labels His Master’s Voice and EMI (the latter, particularly through their subsidiary Decca Records), began to distribute American jazz and increasingly blues records to the emerging market. Donegan became the key figure in the development of the British skiffle “craze”, beginning in Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen by playing American folk and blues songs, particularly those derived from the recordings of Huddie Leadbetter, during intervals to the accompaniment of guitar, washboard and tea-chest bass in a lively style that emulated American jug bands. The more traditional American folk blues continued to provide 1960s British groups with material, particularly after the emergence of Bob Dylan, who also popularised folk blues songs.

This stimulated the explosion of the British “skiffle craze” and it has been estimated that in the late 1950s there were 30,000-50,000 skiffle groups in Britain. In addition to members of the Beatles, a large number of British rhythm and blues musicians began their careers playing skiffle, including Van Morrison, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Roger Daltrey. British trad jazz band-leader Chris Barber was one of the major figures in the development and popularisation of rhythm and blues in Britain the 1950s. His interest in the blues would help foster both the skiffle craze and the development of electric rhythm and blues, as members of his dance band would be fundamental to both movements. They signed a recording contract with Decca and their first single was a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On” released in June 1963. Despite its being virtually unpromoted by the band or the record company, their reputation among R&B fans helped it reached number 21 on the UK singles chart. Like guitarist Alexis Korner, he had worked for Chris Barber, germany kit playing in the R&B segment Barber introduced to his show and as part of the supporting band for visiting US artists.

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, who had renewed their childhood association after discovering a shared interest in R&B records, were introduced to guitarist Brian Jones through Alexis Korner, after a Blues Incorporated gig at the Ealing Jazz Club. Blues Incorporated established a regular “Rhythm and Blues Night” at the Ealing Jazz Club and were given a residency at the Marquee Club, from which in 1962 they took the name of the first British blues album, R&B from the Marquee (Decca), but Korner and Davies had split over the issue of including horn sections in the Blues Incorporated sound before its release. Formed in London in 1962, Jones took their name from a track on the cover of a Muddy Waters album and they abandoned blues purism before their line-up solidified to focus on a wide range of rhythm and blues artists. The new Kansas City team played in the 2021 season under the placeholder name of Kansas City NWSL before announcing its permanent identity of Kansas City Current at the end of that season. When Broonzy toured England he played a folk blues set to fit British expectations of American blues, rather than his current electric Chicago blues. The fashion created a demand for opportunities to play versions of American folk, argentina shirt blues and jazz music that would contribute to the growth of a club scene.