Oh, the presumption of youth! I recently came across some old press cuttings, including a page written way back in March 1970. That’s exactly 46 years ago. Nearly half a century! As you can see from the photograph, I was but a child. I was pontificating on the state of rock music in England in…

  It’s astounding just how many assumptions there are about the evolution of the blues. I remember Van Morrison saying recently that “some people think the blues started with Jimi Hendrix”. Others think blues started in the 1950s with the emergence of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and company. Talking of John Lee Hooker, I…

  Three blues guitar greats born 12 miles apart. If there was one small area of earth where three of the world’s most influential blues or blues rock guitarists would be born, just a year apart, where do you think it might be? The car below is a bit of a clue, not an easy…

The ‘America’s Gift’ book review in top UK music magazine ‘Blues In Britain’ is found between books on Steve Marriott and Mike Bloomfield. The ‘America’s Gift’ review, on page 39, is between ‘All Or Nothing: The Authorised Story of Steve Marriott’ by Simon Spence and ‘Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield’s Life In The Blues’ by David…

I was recently told, by an American who’d read America’s Gift, how astounded he was at how little he knew about the history of his country’s music. And he was a big blues fan. “America’s Gift should be taught in schools,” he said. “But it won’t be, because there’s too much in it (America’s Gift)…