Kenny Ball RIP

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'd forgotten that detail, but it did fit with the left wing image that trad had at the time.

Why can't I get underneath the quote, if I delete some of it?

MG

Trad was also the musical style (or one of the) that accompanied the Ban the Bomb marches.

[A Lark Ascending]

http://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/ravers-next-step-into-1960s.html

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Excellent link, Bev.

The fifties Ravers had transferred themselves into most of the audience at the Ealing R&B club, when it opened in '61, with Alexis Korner every week. Sartorially and terpsichorally, at any rate. Well and politically, too.

The mention in one of the comments of the Ace Cafe on the N Circular I found a bit odd. By the time I moved to Ealing, mid '59, that was a bikers' cafe - and served the best All Day Breakfasts the world has ever known. More of a connection to the Rockers of a few years later than the Ravers. But maybe in '55 it was different.

Some places were ambiguous. The Crusader coffee bar towards South Ealing, where my mates and I hung, had a LOAD of Blue Beat singles on it, though I hardly ever saw any West Indians there. My fat friend Rose and I played them, anyway But we never fathomed why they were on the box.

MG

[GA Russell]

Anyone here know why trad took off in the UK when it did? It's legacy here is huge -- as I understand it Chris Barber's employment of Lonnie Donegan and Alexis Corner led to British skiffle and R&B and therefore the Beatles, Stones and all the rest. I can imagine why young Brits would have been looking for their own popular movement in the postwar years, but why traditional jazz?

Wasn't trad jazz more like a fad? I think some of its musicians were influential, not so much trad jazz itself (Ken Colyer also comes to mind). Its heyday was short-lived if I remember correctly (late 1950s-early 1960s). By the way, wasn't Alexis Korner more into blues?

Yes, but he played guitar in Barber's band. Cyril Davies was in that band, too. And Korner had a wide appreciation of blues which included Charles Mingus and Jimmy Smith, as well as Muddy Waters and Champion Jack Dupree. I used to have a Korner album in which they played 'Haitian fight song' and 'Back at the chicken shack'. And I have a vivid recollection of one Saturday night (1962) at the Ealing R&B club (which was Korner's regular gig) in which Long John Baldry and Mick Jagger sat in and duetted on Ray Charles' 'I got a woman'.

Oh, Korner also made an EP for Topic (a British folk music label) with Davy Graham - '3/4 AD' - one track of which was later appropriated by Simon & Garfunkel.

MG

Thanks to MG for finding this thread for me. I think I recall another thread on which I commented on the Korner album with Haitian Fight Song and Back at the Chicken Shack.

Anyway, I bought a cutout of the American release of this album, I think in the early '80s. And much to my surprise, I have found it available on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002YYUJJ2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=RVSBV717YT9&coliid=I27SMRYZWJBJ6A

Edited October 10, 2014 by GA Russell

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yeah, that album was originally called 'Red hot from Alex' (a play on the title of a film) on the Transatlantic label viz:

He looks a good bit younger in that photo than in the one they were using in the late sixties (the one I got) or the one you've shown. That's him more or less as I remember him, but somewhat neater

MG

[clifford_thornton]

were Kenny and Ronnie related?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I thought that was a joke question - my only knowledge of Ronnie Ball is through some of the Chris Connor albums I have. I didn't know he was English. Wiki doesn't say he was Kenny's brother, nor that Kenny was his. So I dunno the answer. But there's only two years between them and they were born in different areas of the country, so the chances are they weren't related.

MG

[clifford_thornton]

Ah. Thanks. I noticed upthread a comment about "preferring Ronnie" and extrapolated to this question.