Customer Reviews

Blues-Rock Explosion (Sixties Rock Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you love the blues and you love rock, you HAVE to have this book! It is THE Bible of the blues-rock phenomenon, period. "The Blues-Rock Explosion" is a brilliantly-written compendium that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the music you love...where it came from, who the artists were, and how this soulful, gut-punching style of music that grabbed you and never let you go developed and blossomed in the USA and the UK, from the late 50's, right through the 60's and the early 70's. By the end of the book you'll have the WHOLE picture of this seminal, magic era in musical history.

I couldn't put this wonderful book down, and though I was "there" at the last half of the Explosion and thought I pretty much knew who was who and what was what and how it all happened; I learned more from this book than I picked up first-hand from my experience playing this style of music in San Francisco, London and Los Angeles from the 60's to the present day.

The Blues-Rock Explosion is a must for anyone who loves the blues and rock 'n roll. You'll be hooked as it takes you through Liverpool and London, Chicago and Seattle, and profiles Clapton, Mayall, Butterfield & King and all the rest who made blues-rock history. Great book.

(Funky) Paul Olsen

It's amazing how much info the authors have gotten into these relatively few pages. And apparently everything is correct!! This is the most amazing book on Blues-Rock ever. And the discographies are so informative that you can go out and buy what you want with the info from them. If you are a DJ or hosting a blues-rock radio show (like I am), you have here more than 50 ready to rock shows!! The authors have done all the research for you!! I like that, all I have to do is choose among all the fine chapters.

I cannot recommend this book enough to lovers of Blues-Rock.
GO BUY IT!!

Old Goat Publishing Company, located in Mission Viejo, California, is a group of elite rock music writers who have come together for a common purpose: Bring the vibrant music scene of the 1960's to life in a series of books that are painstakingly researched and meticulously detailed. Blues-Rock Explosion, the first offering in this series, delivers 42 profiles of many of the seminal groups of the so-called "Blues Revival Movement of 1968." Generously assisted by recollections from many of the principals involved, Blues-Rock explosion paints a vibrant portrait of a (primarily British) scene suffused with excitement, as the musicians start by slavishly imitating the great American bluesmen like Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters, then grow by leaps and bounds to create an entirely new genre (blues-rock) that forms the basis for much of popular music's later development into hard rock and heavy metal. One could argue for inclusion of more bands, such as, say, the Animals and Led Zeppelin, but the author's decision to limit the time period covered (from roughly the mid-1960's until 1973) puts sensible boundaries around the subject, making the book's length a very manageable 300 pages instead of 900. Several future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are detailed in these portraits (the Allman Brothers, Cream, Eric Clapton, and the Yardbirds), but just as compelling are the chapters concerning artists whose careers were cut short by tragedy (the Mark Leeman Five, Jo Ann Kelly). Also, even though it is not surprising that many of the British artists played with and were influenced by each other (since England is a smallish country), it is a great pleasure to read that Chicago in the 1960's remained a vital component of the blues scene, contributing such greats as Electric Flag, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Mike Bloomfield, and Nick Gravenites. Last, and perhaps most important, Blues-Rock Explosion finally spotlights such long-neglected heavyweights as Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Canned Heat, and Ten Years After, many of whom are not only still alive in the 21st Century, but are still contributing relevant, listenable new albums to those of us who never tired of hearing the blues in its many incarnations. Good luck and continued success to the Old Goats for continuing to believe that these great artists are still worthy of our attention.

Well, this has to be the definitive account of the way British and American blues bands turned their love of authentic US blues into commercial success for themselves whilst acknowledging the huge debt they owed to the 'real thing'. The detail is staggering - if you want to know what Eric Clapton had for breakfast on July 21st 1968, then this is the book for you.

This book is fantastic! The only thing that would make it better yet, would be the addition of a few more blues artists that seem to have been left out. (The Animals, Eric Burdon, Spencer Davis,...and WHERE is Led Zeppelin!!!...the greatest Blues rock band ever??) It is still well worth owning, if you can still get one...lots of information, and things even an avid Blues Rock fan probably didn't know. The "Introduction" is one of the best parts, giving you virtually a complete history of how this great music evolved. Gives Blues Music the attention it has deserved for so long, and never got.

No cobbled-together overview, this is an impressive, meaty book of great integrity. Care has obviously been taken to do the research & get the facts straight. "Heavy hitters" like John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, the Butterfield Band & the Yardbirds are covered admirably in a way that is both comprehensive & concise. Lesser known artists also appear, & when reading the book one constantly encounter players who would turn up in other places, at other times. The reader feels himself in good, knowledgeable hands from the get-go. (Martin Celmin's introductory essay is worth the price of the book in & of itself.)
It's that rarest of things, a book that is both entertaining & a solid reference work as well. The A-Z approach also makes it, as my friend Chris Darrow calls it, a great "toilet book." Meaning, I hasten to clarify, a book one can dip into whenever or wherever.
It's the first in a series, & I look forward to the future volumes.

This book is fantastic! The only thing that would make it better yet, would be the addition of a few more blues artists that seem to have been left out. (The Animals, Eric Burdon, Spencer Davis,...and WHERE is Led Zeppelin!...the greatest Blues rock band ever??) It is still well worth owning, if you can still get one...lots of information, and things even an avid Blues Rock fan probably didn't know. The "Introduction" is one of the best parts, giving you virtually a complete history of how this great music evolved. Gives Blues Music the attention it has deserved for so long, and never got.

It's not the main bands covered in the book that amaze me so much. One would expect the likes of The Yardbirds, Cream, etc to be covered but the more obscure bands that deserve some recognition finally get some in this superb book. The Black Cat Bones (with members of Free) The Downliners Sect (great 'unknowns' from The U.K.) Aynsley Dunbar's Retaliation all get their due along with many more. The discographies are the most accurate I've ever seen and the clever 'Postscripts' at the end of each chapter let us know the history of the band members after they departed their respective groups. This is one you need to buy!

Whenever I find a book that devotes significant ink to my all-time favorite singer (the criminally neglected Tracy Nelson--and no, I don't mean Ricky's TV actress daughter), I can't help get excited. BLUES ROCK EXPLOSION devotes several pages to Tracy and her original band, Mother Earth. And the info is all pretty much accurate, with quotes dug up from what now must be pretty obscure sources like late 1960s HIT PARADER articles. (HP used to be quite the informative little music mag back in the day--before it went heavy metal hair band crazy.) There are gaps in the discography, and that disturbed me a bit. But any coverage of this great singer in a major publication is heartening nonetheless.

Interesting though, the entry on Tracy goes on at some length about the inevitable Joplin comparisons (which were always somewhat misleading, since Tracy was more gospel influenced and much less raspy and raw than Janis--god love 'em both though). But oddly, there is no entry on Joplin herself. Hmmm. Could it be that they're going after only the rootsiest of "blues rockers" for this book, and that Janis and Big Brother will surface in some future volume (psychedelia maybe? or rock icons in general?).

Some of the reviewers below complain about this or that artist or group not being included in this otherwise fairly comprehensive reference work. I AM guessing here, but as indicated above, this appears to be the first in a series of Old Goat publications, and it is likely that when the artists overlap genres that they will be included in some other volume. Led Zeppelin may strike some as the "ultimate blues rockers" as one poster notes below. But, as mentioned, this book's focus seems to be on the rootsiest artists--and Led Zep could be being saved for the metal volume. And of course, Zep only showed up at the tail end of the 60s (which is the temporal focal point of this volume) and went on to conquer the world mainly in the 70s, so that could be another factor.

I have less of an answer for why Eric Burden and the Animals didn't make the cut, however, although Eric could slip into a psychedelia volume later on too (that just wasn't his BEST work). And maybe Hot Tuna was too much tied to the San Fran scene as well (though on their own, they were pretty darn rootsy too). Well, we'll have to see what future efforts by the Old Goats bring. In the meantime, this is welcome coverage for some pretty deserving artists, much of whose work is still available. Even though the book is a bit on the pricy side, I recommend it to any half-way serious student of the blues.

In a previous review of this book, I mentioned some minor gaps in the discography. Actually, it was my own error, I hadn't noticed that the cut-off date for this mainly '60s-oriented work was 1972 and that releases by the artists discussed after that date were discussed fairly extensively in a "postscript" to the main entry on the group or artist.

In any event, that was only a very minor concern. As I've read more and more of this book, I've come to decide that it is an almost indespensible reference work for lovers of rock, blues and 60s music in general.

And I take issue with those who feel a bit miffed that this or that artist or group has not been included in this volume. If all goes as hoped, this book will be one of many in a series devoted to music of the 60s. The old goats at Old Goat Publishing are hard at work at follow ups, so please be a little patient. (You can check them out at www.oldgoat.com.) Many artists of the era were eclectic to the point where genre bending became their modus operadi. Creatively, that was an exciting and flat out wonderful turn of events. Critically, well, it makes classification and categorization all the harder.

Yes, Led Zeppelin had a strong blues influence, but there would be a much stronger argument for including them in a future volume on "metal" or "megastars." The focus of this work is more on those artists that you may NOT have heard of and whose work deserves attention. (No one can deny that Led Zep has not had a fair amount of ink spilled in their name.) By comparsion, the inclusion of Cream in this volume is justified, not just because Cream was significantly "rootsier" than Zep, but because (apparently) an editorial decision was made to include all of Eric Clapton's work in one volume.

And speaking of Erics, wouldn't Burden be more appropriate in an eventual "British Invasion" volume? Yeah, it's all somewhat arbitrary, but if you're familiar with any kind of criticism (literary, film, music or whatever), you know that those kinds of distinctions are absolutely necessary. There are people out there, for instance, who will tell you in no uncertain terms that "classical" music should NOT be an umbrella term for the music of the Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern eras. But sometimes that kind of critical shorthand is necessary if you're going to have any kind of discussion at all.

BLUES-ROCK EXPLOSION should help initiate discussion of the oft-neglected music to which it is devoted. There'll be plenty more to discuss with future volumes in the Old Goat series. At least this old goat hopes so.