Library Rock's Backpages

Got Dem Ol' Home Counties Blues Again, Mama: How the Surrey Delta shaped British rock from the early Stones to Led Zeppelin

Barney Hoskyns, The Times, 3 September 2012

RIPLEY... EPSOM... WALLINGTON. The names hardly resonate in the way that Clarksdale or Greenville or Natchez do. Yet in their way these Surrey towns are as important as those landmark blues locations in the Mississippi Delta. For out of them came the three most feted guitar players of Britain's '60s blues boom – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, all members of an evolving musical boot camp known as the Yardbirds.

Total word count of piece: 1148

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.