BRITISH BLUES ARCHIVE

Balfour's Blues

 

“ Balfour's Blues”

 

Our sincere thanks to Alan for his contributions, which he hopes we will consider as reflecting the times in which they were written. We are indebted to Alan for the use of his Blues Link magazines, and to Stefan Wirz for the scans.  And now,  I'll allow the author to make his own introductions.

 

“Over the decades I've bored several radio stations as to how I discovered the blues so I may as well do the same here.

In the school summer holidays of 1962 I went to the house of a school chum. On arrival his father was listening to a record, the kind of which I'd never heard. I was transfixed by what I was listening to. It seemed to me be all about the mistreatment of "negroes". I was finding it very difficult to make out what was being said on the LP but my friend's dad gave me a four page LP size sheet of transcription that came with the record.

To cut a long story short, the LP was Blues In The Mississippi Night (Pye-Nixa, 1957) and the father was a jazz/blues fan. He gave me the LP (yes, gave) - along with armfuls of Jazz Journal and Jazz Monthly - telling me that I could discover more about "the blues". He also told me to look out for a then out of print book, Blues Fell This Morning. That I found, and have never looked back!” Alan Balfour

 

 

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