Amoeba Music

This is a used item.

Some wear to cover; pages clean & unmarked; binding is tight, no creases on spine.

ISBN 978-1900924412 - Helter Skelter Publishing  

Out of Print. Softcover. Copyright 1995. Printed in Great Britain.

Brunning has performed with blues bands since 1967 (when he broke in with Fleetwood Mac and Savoy Brown), which adds both authority and an insider's perspective to this excellent history of British blues. The early style changed after visits to the U.K. during the '50s by Muddy Waters and other Americans. Then came the '60s explosion; Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, the Animals, Manfred Mann, the Spencer Davis Group, the Pretty Things and Ten Years After. Brunning traces events to the present, but his best chapters recount the pleasures, miseries and "eternal problems for white bands who worked with visiting American bluesmen." He recalls one conflict: "The only words Jimmy Witherspoon said to me during the three days' residency was when he walked over to me whilst we were on stage and said, 'Tell that f-----g guitar player to turn down, or I'll knock him off the stage.' " Brunning skillfully blends his own memories with those of many other British musicians; the result is an informative, energetic, entertaining, fast-paced survey.