Being stuck over in England with just the BBC for company we did not get to hear much of black music from America. The BBC did not play it. When the British Merseybeat and then Beat groups started playing Blues and R&B they had a very rich seam to mine. All those brilliant 1950s R&B acts were not heard in England.
Now I had been introduced to the Blues by my mate Dick but the rest of American R&B was unknown to me. I started noting who it was who were producing the originals of a lot of the music the Beat Groups were putting out. I discovered a whole range of fantastic black R&B. One of these was Arthur Alexander.
Arthur was completely unknown but he was being covered by the likes of the Beatles, Stones and Gerry & the Pacemakers. I enjoyed digging out these seminal people!
So today I’ll be playing the soulful Arthur Alexander.