Blues Incorporated: How British R&B Trashed Trad

ALEXIS KORNER'S Parisian birthplace, Austro-Greek parentage, noble features and languid growl endowed him with an aura of exoticism unreflected in his musical partner Cyril "Squirrel" Davies, a balding, ex-banjo-playing panel beater from Denham with a villainous streak, who could nevertheless make a harmonica sing the blues like no one else in England. The pair had already done their bit for the evolution of homegrown R&B with their London Blues and Barrelhouse Club, whose guests at the Thursday evening sessions in an upstairs room of a Soho pub included Muddy Waters.