Fact #74857
When:
Short story:
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers release a new album, Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, in the UK on Decca Records.
Full article:
B.B. King : If it wasn't Clapton it would be some other guy. I think all of us get ideas from someone. The world wouldn't move if we didn't have ideas to pass along to someone else. The offensive part is that black music that has been denied can be accepted because guys in white skin are doing it.
But to be copied - imitation is the first sign of greatness! So if anybody imitate' something I do, I feel a little flattered. That is why I think white groups have helped the blues so much . . . Canned Heat, The Stones, and especially The Beatles - not that I class what I do with them. But with groups like this able to go on television networks, this opened the door to young people to listen to us because a lot of these fellows say they learned from us.
The only thing is that some people have said the blues is a low form of culture. There were a lot of middle-class Blacks, especially professional people, doctors, lawyers, preachers and the like that hated the blues, thought it degraded blacks. Many did not want to be associated with blues because it was too painful a reminder of what they were or where they came from. It's like here in England now. I notice that rarely do you hear blues of my kind on the BBC.
(Source : interview by David Walters, Time Out, Nov 1971)
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But to be copied - imitation is the first sign of greatness! So if anybody imitate' something I do, I feel a little flattered. That is why I think white groups have helped the blues so much . . . Canned Heat, The Stones, and especially The Beatles - not that I class what I do with them. But with groups like this able to go on television networks, this opened the door to young people to listen to us because a lot of these fellows say they learned from us.
The only thing is that some people have said the blues is a low form of culture. There were a lot of middle-class Blacks, especially professional people, doctors, lawyers, preachers and the like that hated the blues, thought it degraded blacks. Many did not want to be associated with blues because it was too painful a reminder of what they were or where they came from. It's like here in England now. I notice that rarely do you hear blues of my kind on the BBC.
(Source : interview by David Walters, Time Out, Nov 1971)