How Britain Got the Blues

There are some hysterically-funny moments in this documentary. To wit:

“The guts of American rock ‘n’ roll spilled out across Britain in 1957.”

Yuck! Sorry, Britain.

“The Thames Delta”, after the Mississippi Delta, for a blues-centric area of Britain.

Apology rescinded.

Keith Richards’s Muddy Waters impression had me convulsing with laughter. Most everything he says in this segment – especially about achieving authenticity – is gold.

In fact, that “Thames Delta” tag must have come from some half-witted journalist of the period, because everyone interviewed here is adamant that they in no way faced the poverty, hardship, and oppression experienced by the black blues musicians they so wanted to emulate. The way they contrast British middle-class life with the lives of their blues-playing idols is meticulous to a fault.

I wonder, though, that they don’t credit the trauma their parents experienced on a daily basis during the war. It must have impacted their parenting in some way. It’s not life as a black person in the Jim Crow South, yet it’s nothing to sneeze at, either. But I digress.

In subsequent segments, the tremendous contribution of British blues fans to American music is touched on, but only obliquely, and the assessment is far too modest.

The truth is that Americans would rather have lynched these seminal blues artists than seen them on tour. Blues music, marketed as “race music”, was so obscure that fans had to order it through the mail; it couldn’t be found in most record stores.

The first generation of blues musicians would have starved if they hadn’t been discovered by the British public, and brought overseas to tour and appear on television – all the things that should have been happening for them in their own country.

As much as they downplay it, these British blues musicians spoon-fed our own music back to us. If they had not, it would have remained a regional musical curiosity – not unlike bluegrass before college kids on both coasts discovered it.

“How Britain Got the Blues” is essential viewing for any music fan, and anyone who seeks to navigate the minefield of cultural appropriation with anything approaching intelligence and civility. You’ll find all six parts here.