American music that went there and back again to be heard

It was fifty years ago that young English musicians like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, and Eric Burdon began to make a name for themselves in the hardscrabble music clubs of London. Within a few years, their names would be known all over the world, and the British Invasion of America would change popular music forever.

It is fair to say that the most popular and successful musicians of the ‘60s were British. And in what seems a strange irony, they all were drawn to become performers by a type of American music that most Americans were oblivious to—blues.

And yet, a closer look at the America and England of the early 1960’s reveals that the British Invasion was almost destined to be.

In 1960, England was still reeling from the ravages of World War II. There was still plenty of rebuilding to be done, and a sizeable portion of British economy went to reconstruction. Taxes were high, and most of the lower and middle class lived from paycheck to paycheck.

To make matters worse, English society was rigidly inflexible. A child born into the lower class had little hope of ever rising much higher. A lower- or middle-class English lad just entering his teen years in 1960 had little more than a long lifetime of labor looming ahead of him.

By contrast, he peered across the ocean to America, where anything seemed possible. Because the war had been fought on foreign soil, America recovered almost immediately, and by 1960, our economy was strong. Young lads like Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, or the Everly Brothers needed nothing more than a guitar and a good hairstyle to make it rich.

English lads envied these young American superstars, but it wasn’t their music that the young Brits wanted to copy.

No, instead it was the music of lesser-known black American blues artists that struck the deepest chord with the London lads.

In retrospect, it is not too surprising that young Brits identified more closely with a type of music that grew from a people who had once known slavery. In many ways, a young Englishman in 1960 would feel enslaved by his nation’s stingy economy and rigid social caste system.

And so they devoured American blues with every chance they got. If they could gather together a few bob, they would send off for blues records from America. And whenever they met another young Londoner who might have a record that they wanted to hear, a friendship was inevitable.

That is how Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met, as a shy young Keith introduced himself to Mick on a public bus, only because Mick had a new Chuck Berry album under his arm.

To add insult to irony, many of the records that so appealed to young British fans were entirely unknown to Americans for the simple reason that they had been written and recorded by black men and women. America was as deeply racist in 1960 as Britain was classist. The American Dream was still nothing more than a daydream if your skin wasn’t the right color.

But by the early 1960’s, British economy had recovered enough that young London lads might be able to afford a cheap guitar, and when young British groups started playing the songs of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, and Leadbelly, America took notice. These were wonderful songs—and because they were performed by white groups, Americans started to listen. The albums started to cross the Atlantic in the other direction.

When the Beatles first landed on our shores to be met by hordes of screaming fans, they were asked what they most wanted to see while here.

“Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley,” they answered.

“Where is that?” said the clueless reporter, who had never heard of American musicians whose names would have been household words with any young Londoner.

When the Rolling Stones arrived a year later, they insisted on visiting Chess Records at 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago, where many of their favorite blues records had been recorded. As they walked in the door, they bumped into their hero, Muddy Waters, painting the ceiling of the recording studio.

To their credit, each of those young British musicians who rose to fame on the shoulders of black American artists gave full credit to the source of their inspiration. Many older American blues artists—Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, and others—finally found the fame that had eluded them for most of their lives. They traveled to Europe and beyond, giving the world a long-awaited close encounter with genuine American blues and bringing the story full-circle.

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