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Blues Rock

Solihull, Swell Maps, 1972

Nikki Sudden

Nikki Sudden was born Adrian Godfrey in London in 1956. As a teenager in Solihull he started Swell Maps with his brother, who went by Epic Soundtracks, and the band made noisy post-punk until it split in 1980. After that he went looking backwards, to the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. With Dave Kusworth he formed the Jacobites, whose first album came out on Glass in 1984, and solo records came out on Creation. Trouser Press once wrote that he suffered from delusions of Keith Richardsdom. He made a 1991 album with members of R.E.M. and worked with Rowland S. Howard and Mick Taylor. He died of a heart attack in New York in March 2006, after a show at the Knitting Factory.

Los Angeles, 1979

Jeffrey Lee Pierce (The Gun Club)

Jeffrey Lee Pierce was born in Montebello, California, in 1958 and spent his teens in the San Fernando Valley. Before he had a band he ran Blondie's West Coast fan club and wrote about punk, blues and reggae for the fanzine Slash. In 1979 he talked Kid Congo Powers into starting a group with him, and it became the Gun Club. Their 1981 debut, on Slash's Ruby Records, pushed blues, rockabilly and country through Los Angeles punk, and it got filed under punk blues and cowpunk. The band split and re-formed, and Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie produced Mother Juno in 1987. Pierce lived in London from 1985 until 1995. He died in Salt Lake City in March 1996, aged 37, of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Hot Tuna, Berkeley, 1969

Jorma Kaukonen

Jorma Kaukonen was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940, and his father's State Department work meant stretches of childhood abroad. As a teenager he played in a band with Jack Casady. At Antioch College a friend taught him fingerstyle guitar and introduced him to Reverend Gary Davis, whose songs he still plays. He joined Jefferson Airplane in 1965. In 1969 he and Casady started Hot Tuna on the side, and its first album was recorded live at the New Orleans House in Berkeley. Over the decades the band kept switching between acoustic and electric. Kaukonen went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Airplane in 1996, runs the Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp in Ohio and published a memoir in 2018.

Newcastle upon Tyne, 1962

Eric Burdon

Eric Burdon was born in the Walker district of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1941. The Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo turned into the Animals soon after he joined in 1962, with Price, Hilton Valentine, Chas Chandler and John Steel. They played rough, bluesy R&B and were one of the big British groups in America by 1964. Price left in 1965, and the band split in September 1966. Burdon carried on as Eric Burdon and the Animals, settled in California and went psychedelic. In San Francisco in 1969 he teamed up with the funk band War, and they made two albums in 1970. The Animals went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He moved to Athens in 2021.

Blackpool, 1967

Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull started in Blackpool in 1967 and moved to Luton that November. A history buff at their booking agency named them after an eighteenth-century agriculturist, and the name stuck once the Marquee Club gave them a weekly residency. At first they were a blues band, with Mick Abrahams on guitar and Ian Anderson singing and playing flute. This Was came out in October 1968 and reached the UK top ten. Abrahams left that December to form Blodwyn Pig, and Martin Barre took over on guitar. Stand Up, from 1969, was their only UK number one. Later came progressive and folk rock, and in 1989 a Grammy for hard rock and metal. The band stopped in 2011, and Anderson has used the name again since 2017.

The Collection