Norwegian Fans in Ealing Club Visit

Alistair Young (pictured top right) tells the story of Ealing’s historic Red Room club to a group of 60 Norwegian music fans in a visit arranged on 12 October 2109 to the basement venue organised by Music Heritage London.

Young is co-founder of the Ealing Club Community Interest Company established in 2011 to highlight the music heritage of Ealing, Acton, Hanwell and Southall and to inspire the musicians of the future.


Back in March 1962 the Red Room premises opposite Ealing Broadway Station was the home of the Ealing Blues Club,  the place where electric blues music was first regularly played in the UK. It provided an inspiration and the early experience for a generation of British musicians who became famous around the world as members of the Rolling Stones, The Who, Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple and many more.

The Ealing Club also played a part in creating the sound of rock. A Sunday night in 1963 saw the first public performance ever to use the classic ‘loud’ Marshall JTM45 guitar amplifier, designed and built in nearby Hanwell.

The Norwegian visitors went on to attend a private screening at Ealing’s Classic Cinema Club of Suburban Steps to Rockland, the feature-length documentary about the Red Room’s history.

Robert Hokum's Blues Book List for the 2019 Chiswick Book Festival

Robert Hokum’s Blues Book List

Here’s a list of the books recommended  in Robert Hokum’s Chiswick Book Festival presentation How West London Rocked The World on 18 September 2019:

Alan Lomax – ‘The Land Where The Blues Began’ **

B.B.King with David Ritz – ‘The Autobiography’

Barry Miles – ‘London Calling – a Countercultural History of London Since 1945’

Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey

Billy Bragg – ‘Roots Radicals & Rockers – How Skiffle Changed the World’ **

Charles Shaar Murray – ‘Boogie Man: the Adventures of John Lee Hooker’

Dick Heckstall-Smith with Peter Grant – ‘Blowing The Blues – Fifty Years of Playing The British Blues’

Elijah Wald – ‘Escaping the Delta – Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues’ **

Frank Malabe & Bob Weiner – ‘Afro Cuban Rhythms for Drumset’

Gunnar Lindgren – ‘The Arabic Roots of Jazz and Blues’ – Many Musics Action Programme *

Jimi Hendrix – ‘Starting at Zero – His Own Story’

John Zwed  – ‘The Man Who Recorded The World – a biography of Alan Lomax’

Mezz Mezzrow – ‘Really The Blues’

Mo Foster – ‘Play Like Elvis’

Richard Kostelanetz – ‘The B.B. King Companion’

Robert Gordon – ‘Can’t Be Satisfied – The Life and Times of Muddy Waters’

Sharon Lawrence – ‘Jimi Hendrix, the Man, the Magic, the Truth’

Sylviane A. Diouf – ‘What Islam Gave the Blues’ – Published by ‘Renovato’, the Journal of Zaytuna College *

Wikipedia – ‘Origins of The Blues’ *

DVD – Don McGlynn – ‘The Howlin’ Wolf Story – The Secret History of Rock’n’Roll’

* Available free on the Internet.   

** Highly recommended

Robert Hokum's Blues Music Play List for the 2019 Chiswick Book Festival

Robert Hokum’s Music List

Here’s a list of the music mentioned in Robert Hokum’s Chiswick Book Festival presentation How West London Rocked The World on 18 September 2019:

PART ONE – WHAT IS THE BLUES?

  • LIZZIE MILES – MY MAN’O’WAR – 1930

An example of the commercialised music sold as ‘Blues’ in the 1930s

  • LEADBELLY – WHOA BACK BUCK – 1934

The song which Robert Hokum believes has a similar melody to an Islamic call to prayer that he heard in Indonesia in 1993.

  • LIGHTENING WASHINGTON AND GROUP – LONG JOHN – 1933

Recorded by the John & Alan Lomax at Darrington State Farm (prison work camp), Texas.

This ‘wood-chopping’ work song gives an example of the rhythms that would later find their way into the Blues.

  • MUDDY WATERS – I BE’S TROUBLED – 1941

Recorded at Stovall’s Plantation by J&A Lomax. This is the first recording of the musician who would be brought to Britain by Chris Barber, inspire the British electric blues boom. His song Rolling Stone would give the name to a certain band whose classic line-up’s first-ever gig would be at the Ealing Club on 12 January 1963.

  • THE DEER CLAN SINGERS – MOCASSIN DANCE

Recorded at a Pura Fe concert in 2011. This Native American heritage group displays how the music of their culture could have influence the Blues.

PART TWO – THE BLUES COMES TO BRITAIN

  • KEN COLYER – K.C.MOAN – 1954

The Godfather of British Trad Jazz also had a skiffle group of which this is a recording. It is the recording debut of Alexis Korner on guitar.

  • BERYL BRYDEN’S BACKROOM SKIFFLE – KANSAS CITY BLUES – 1956

The first recordings of Alexis Korner & Cyril Davies together.

  • ALEXIS KORNER’S BLUES INCORPORATED FEATURING CYRIL DAVIES – NATIONAL DEFENCE BLUES – 1958

The first recordings of Blues Incorporated, when they were still an acoustic group.

  • MUDDY WATERS – I’VE GOT MY MOJO WORKING – 1960

From Live at Newport, this was the album that was a template for Blues Incorporated. The Blues Incorporated album R&B at The Marquee includes covers of four songs from this album.

  • BLUES INCORPORATED – BUILT FOR COMFORT – 1963

With Long John Baldry on vocals, and cover of a Howlin’ Wolf.

PART THREE – WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

  • LED ZEPPELIN – TRAVELLING RIVERSIDE BLUES – 1969

A couple of British musicians from the Alexis Korner school with a cover of a Robert Johnson song recorded in a 1969 BBC session.  Armed with a wall of Marshall amps, and playing delta style blues at intense volume, they would go on to be the biggest ROCK band in the world.