EPISODE · Jul 24, 2026 · 26 MIN
Episode 2 — The British Blues Boom
from Blues Progressions · host Karl Sorochinski
The fuse from Episode 1 catches. How a generation of British kids fell for American blues records and handed the music back louder: Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated as the hub; the underground club scene (the Marquee, Eel Pie Island); the race-and-radio reason it took outsiders; the Rolling Stones as a Chess cover band; the Animals and Them; John Mayall's Bluesbreakers as the guitar-hero factory (Clapton, Green, Mick Taylor); the 1966 "Beano" album and the Les-Paul-into-cranked-Marshall tone that defined rock guitar; the Yardbirds pipeline (Clapton → Beck → Page); Cream and the power trio; Peter Green's blues-band Fleetwood Mac; Led Zeppelin's blues bones — and the honest reckoning about credit and payment owed to the Black originators. Ends with the round-trip: the Stones putting Howlin' Wolf on American TV, and Hendrix flown to London.
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What this episode covers
The blues left America, got amplified in England, and came home a god. Episode 2 of ”The Bones of It All” — Alexis Korner, the Bluesbreakers factory, the Beano tone that defined rock guitar, the Yardbirds that launched Clapton, Beck AND Page, and the honest story of the credit owed to Willie Dixon and the Chess giants. What’s the cover you loved before you knew it was a cover?
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Episode 2 — The British Blues Boom
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