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During the 1960s, the UK was the location for a vibrant social revolution. London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester
and Newcastle all had their own music scenes. Musicians from Belfast and Glasgow moved to London to be part of the club scene
there. The post-war traditional jazz and folk revival movements produced the fertile ground for a new kind of blues music
— entirely influenced by the authentic black blues of the USA, and, for the most part, entirely ignored by the good
citizens of the US. It was new in the sense that certain key musicians took the blues and molded it in an entirely personal
way to fit the new awareness of the UK in the sixties. Importantly, for the most part they continued to pay homage to the
originators of the music and to make a huge global audience aware of the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf,
Freddie King, etc.
In this segment of Martin Scorsese's PBS series, The Blues, Mike Figgis examines the circumstances of this vibrant period.
Figgis himself participated, albeit in a minor way, in this period of history, playing in a blues band with Bryan Ferry, a
band that was the nucleus for the first version of Roxy Music, called Gas Board
A series of musical interviews with the key players of the blues movement is augmented with a live session at the
famous Abbey Road recording studios. Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, and Lulu all improvise around some classic blues
standards, accompanied by a superb band made up of younger and not-so-younger-musicians. The results are electrifying.
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Performances in Red, White & Blues
Jeff Beck
Big Bill Broonzy *
Cream *
Lonnie Donegan
Georgie Fame
Chris Farlowe
Tom Jones
B.B. King
Peter King
Alexis Korner *
Albert Lee
Lulu
Humphrey
Lyttelton
Sonny Terry * & Brownie McGhee *
Van Morrison
Rolling Stones *
Sister Rosetta Tharpe *
Muddy
Waters *
Lead Belly *
Jon Cleary
*indicates archival performance
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