Top Blues Albums No.1

While we wait on band news, I thought I'd start a little series on my most influential Blues albums. This isn't really a list of all time greats. I'm not sure I'm is fit to judge the world's most influential. This is just a list of the ones that made me the bluesman I am. It'll be more of a chronological list rather than any order of importance. So first up it's these guys:


I'm almost (but not quite) ashamed to say my blues journey started here. Believe me, I wish I could tell you it was the day I met Dr Feelgood, or shook BB King's hand or snuck into some seedy blues bar at the age of 15. Instead, I was about 17 when I hear a radio ad on a tape of a recent top 40 from Capitol Radio, London. The ad was for the Blues Brothers movie. I'd been fooling around on harmonica, and didn't really know anything about blues music. But this radio ad had clips from "Sweet Home Chicago" "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" and "She Caught The Katy". I was hooked, I had to hear the rest of those tunes, but it took more than a year for me to see the movie or hear any of the albums.

When I did see it, in Invercargill, 1981, people left the movie in droves. I thought they were nuts. I was mesmerised. It took a while to gather pace, but my blues habit started with that ad. As for the album, well, The Blues Brothers is an all-star band, and the soundtrack is a killer list of blues, soul, gospel and rock. I still rate it as a very warm introduction to the deep world of blues. I think I played those tunes I heard in that radio ad in my first gig in my first blues band, and they'll always be on my master set list.