Korner, Alexis
(g, voc), am 19. April 1928 in Paris geboren, war der
erste professionelle weiße Bluesmusiker in Europa.
Nachdem er in den fünfziger Jahren mit den englischen
Jazz-Traditionalisten Ken Colyer und Chris Barber
Dixieland gespielt sowie die schwarzen US-Sänger Muddy
Waters, Memphis Slim, Speckled Red, Sonny Terry und
Brownie McGhee auf deren England-Tourneen begleitet
hatte, gründete er 1961 im Londoner Stadtteil Ealing
Blues Incorporated, die erste Supergroup der Rockmusik.
Dieses Ensemble, dem 1962 Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts,
Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Eric Burdon, Graham Bond, Dick
Heckstall-Smith und Long John Baldry angehörten, wurde
zur Keimzelle prominenter Gruppen wie beispielsweise der
Animals, der Graham Bond Organization, der Manfred
Mann-Gruppe und der Rolling Stones. In späteren Jahren
ermutigte Korner seine Mitspieler Danny Thompson und
Terry Cox, die Folk Rock-Combo Pentangle zu gründen. Er
lancierte den Sänger Robert Plant zu Led Zeppelin und
half bei der Gründung der Free. Bevor er auf diese Weise
zur einflußreichsten Persönlichkeit der Londoner
Popszene wurde, bevor er in zahllosen Funk- und
TV-Sendungen (Beispiele: "Blues Roll On", "Korner's
Corner", "Blues Is Where You Hear It") sowie in
öffentlichen Vorträgen die schwarze Musik analysierte
und propagierte, hatte der Sohn eines österreichischen
Kaufmanns und ehemaligen Kavallerieoffiziers und einer
griechisch-türkischen Mutter in der Schweiz, Frankreich
und Nordafrika gelebt. Mit einem der letzten
französischen Flüchtlingsschiffe emigrierte seine
Familie zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges nach England.
1947/48 legte Korner als britischer Besatzungssoldat bei
den Sendern BFN und NWDR in Westdeutschland
Schallplatten auf und spielte in Hamburger Jazzlokalen
Gitarre. Er hat mit seinen Bluesbands Charles
Mingus-Kompositionen und reine Rockstücke aufgeführt
sowie mit Free Jazz, indischer und afrikanischer Musik
experimentiert. Seine Besetzungen wechselte er häufig -
von der Blues Incorporated (1962 bis 1967) über die New
Church (1969/70), das Duo mit dem dänischen Gitarristen
Peter Thorup und die Rock-Big Band Creative
Consciousness Society (CCS) bis zur Gruppe Snape, die im
Frühjahr 1972 während seiner ersten USA-Reise zustande
kam: "Ich war immer mehr an einer guten Band als an der
zweifelhaften Rolle eines Solostars interessiert."
Obgleich er mit einem bemerkenswerten
Intonationsreichtum sang und über eine solide
Gitarrentechnik verfügte (er wurde dafür vom englischen
"Melody Maker" und von der US-Zeitschrift "Jazz & Pop"
ausgezeichnet), sagte er: "Ich mag meine Schallplatten
nicht. Ich war nie in der Lage, mit Stimme und
Instrument das zu verwirklichen, was ich in meinem Kopf
höre. Aber ich habe Spaß daran, es immer noch einmal zu
versuchen."
Am 19. April 1978 leistete sich Korner zu seinem 50.
Geburtstag in den Pinewood-Filmstudios nördlich von
London eine Super-Session mit Eric Clapton (g), Zoot
Money (kb), Colin Hodgkinson (bg), Chris Farlowe (voc),
Dick Heckstall-Smith (sax), John Surman (sax) u. a., die
im Party Album (1979) veröffentlicht wurde. Kritiker
Werner Burkhardt beobachtete "eine Demonstration der
Formen und Farben des Blues - lässig, kundig, aber nie
didaktisch. Ein Weiser und Magier steht da, der immer
neue Kaninchen aus dem Blues-Zylinder zaubert"
("Süddeutsche Zeitung").
Danach arbeitete Korner fast ausschließlich als Solist
oder im Duo mit Colin Hodgkinson. Zudem couragierte er
die talentierten schwarzen Sängerinnen Ruby Turner und
Jaki Graham, die er als Background-Stimmen mit auf die
Bühne nahm und die anschließend Soul-Karrieren machten.
Ruby Turner sang mit ihm bei seinem letzten öffentlichen
Auftritt am 20. August 1983 in Eindhoven, Holland. Am 1.
Januar 1984 starb Alexis Korner im Londoner
Westminster-Krankenhaus an Lungenkrebs. Nur einmal im
Leben hatte er auf Schallplatten Hits gehabt: Anfang der
siebziger Jahre mit seiner Big Band CCS. Seine Karriere
ist am besten anhand der sorgfältig edierten Sampler
Bootleg Him (1972) sowie Alexis Korner And ... (1986) zu
verfolgen. Seine besten Gesangsaufnahmen der Spätphase
erschienen im Album
Me
(1979) auf Jeton sowie im autobiographischen
Nachlaß-Album Juvenile Delinquent (1984) auf Charisma.
LPs auf
Folklore: The Legendary Cyril Davies (1970)
auf Ace of Clubs: R&B From The Marquee (1962)
auf Oriole: At The Cavern (1964)
auf Just: All Star Blues Band (1974)
auf Tempo: Alexis Korner's Skiffle Group (1957), Alexis
Korner Blues Incorporated (1969)
auf Decca: Blues Incorporated (1963), Profile (1980)
auf Transatlantic: Blues Incorporated (1964), Red Hot
From Alex Accidentally Born In New Orleans (1973), The
Original (1974)
auf Sonet: What's That Sound I Hear (1971)
auf Toadstool: Mr. Blues (1974)
auf Fontana:
I Wonder Who (1966)
auf Brunswick: Blues Incorporated (1967)
auf Liberty: New Generation Of Blues (1968)
auf Metronome: Both Sides (1970), New Church (1970),
Alexis (1971), Bootleg Him (1972)
auf Brain:
The Accidental Band (1972), Snape Live In Germany (1972)
auf Rak: CCS I (1970), CCS II (1971), The Best Band In
The Land (1973), auf Polydor: Alexis Korner (1974),
Get Off
Of My Cloud (1975)
auf Intercord: Just Easy (1977), The Party Album
(1979)
auf Jeton: Me
(1979)
auf Blue Silver: White & Blues (1980)
auf Atlantic: Rocket 88 (1981)
auf Amiga: And Friends (1982)
auf Charisma: Juvenile Delinquent (1984)
auf Music Club: The BBC Radio Sessions (1994)
auf Indigo: Sky High (1994)
Alexis Korner (19
April
1928
-
1 January
1984),
born Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner, was a
pioneering
blues
musician
and broadcaster who has sometimes been referred to as "the
Founding Father of British Blues". A major influence on
the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s[1],
Korner was instrumental in bringing together various
English
blues musicians.
Early career
Alexis Korner was born in
Paris
to an
Austrian
father and
Greek
mother[2],
and spent his childhood in France,
Switzerland,
and
North Africa.
He arrived in London in 1940 at the start of
the Second World War.
One memory of his youth was listening to a record by
Jimmy Yancey
during a German air raid. He said, "From then on all
I wanted to do was play the blues."
After the war, he played piano and guitar, and in 1949
joined
Chris Barber's
Jazz Band where he met blues harmonica player
Cyril Davies.
They started playing together as a duo, formed the
influential London Blues and Barrelhouse Club in 1955,
and made their first record together in 1957. Korner
brought many
American
blues artists, previously unknown in England, to perform.
The 1960s
In
1961, Korner and Davies formed
Blues Incorporated,
initially a loose-knit group of musicians with a shared
love of electric blues and
R&B
music. The group included, at various times, such
influential musicians as
Charlie Watts,
Jack Bruce,
Ginger Baker,
Long John Baldry,
Graham Bond,
Danny Thompson
and
Dick Heckstall-Smith.
It also attracted a wider crowd of mostly younger fans,
some of whom occasionally performed with the group,
including
Mick Jagger,
Keith Richards,
Brian Jones,
Rod Stewart,
John Mayall
and
Jimmy Page.
One story is that the Rolling Stones went to stay at
Korner's house late one night, in the early 1960s, after
a performance. They entered in the accepted way, by
climbing in through the kitchen window, to find
Muddy Waters'
band sleeping on the kitchen floor.
-
See main article :
Blues Incorporated
Although Cyril Davies left the group in 1963, Blues
Incorporated continued to record, with Korner at the
helm, until 1966. However, by that time its originally
stellar line-up and crowd of followers had mostly left
to start their own bands.
"While his one-time acolytes
the Rolling Stones
and
Cream
made the front pages of music magazines all over the
world, Korner was relegated to the role of "elder
statesman.""Although
he himself was a blues purist - Korner criticised
better-known British blues musicians, during the blues
boom of the late '60s, for their blind adherence to
Chicago blues,
as if the music came in no other form - he liked to
surround himself with
jazz
musicians and often performed with a
horn section
drawn from a pool which included, among others,
saxophone
players
Art Themen,
Mel Collins,
Dick Heckstall-Smith,
Dick Morrissey,
John Surman
and
trombonist
Mike Zwerin.
In
the 1960s Korner began a media career, initially as a
show business interviewer and then on
ITV's
Five O'Clock Club, a children's TV show. He also
wrote about blues for the music papers, and continued
his performing career especially in Europe. While
touring
Scandinavia
he first joined forces with singer
Peter Thorup,
together forming the band
New Church,
who were one of the support bands at the Rolling Stones
Free Concert at Hyde Park on
5 July
1969.
It
is said that Jimmy Page found out about a new singer,
Robert Plant,
who had been jamming with Korner, who wondered why Plant
had not yet been discovered. Plant, Korner, and
Steve Miller
were in the process of recording a full album with Plant
on vocals until Page had asked him to join "the New
Yardbirds", aka
Led Zeppelin.
Only two songs are in circulation from these recordings:
"Steal Away" and "Operator".
he 1970s and
1980s
In
1970 Korner and Thorup formed a big band ensemble,
C.C.S.
- short for The Collective Consciousness Society
- which had several hit singles produced by
Mickie Most,
including a version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole
Lotta Love" which was
used as the theme for BBC's
Top Of The Pops
for several years. Another instrumental called Brother
was used as the theme to the Radio 1 Top 20 when Tom
Browne presented the programme in the early 1970's. This
was the period of Korner's greatest commercial success
in the UK.
-
See main article :
C.C.S.
In
1973, he formed another group,
Snape,
with
Boz Burrell,
Mel Collins, and
Ian Wallace,
previously together in
King Crimson.
Korner also played on
B.B. King's
Supersession album, and cut his own, similar
album, Get Off My Cloud, with Keith Richards,
Peter Frampton,
Nicky Hopkins,
and members of
Joe Cocker's
Grease Band.
In
the mid 1970s, while touring
Germany,
he established an intensive working relationship with
bassist
Colin Hodgkinson
who played for the support act
Back Door.
They would continue to collaborate until the end.
In
the 1970s Korner's main career was in broadcasting. In
1973 he presented a unique 6-part documentary on
BBC Radio 1,
The Rolling Stones Story,[
and in 1977 he established a weekly blues and soul show
on Radio 1, which ran until 1981. He also used his
gravelly voice to great effect as an advertising voice
over artist.
In
1978, for Korner's 50th birthday, an all-star concert
was held featuring many of his friends mentioned above,
as well as
Eric Clapton,
Paul Jones,
Chris Farlowe,
Zoot Money
and other friends, which was later released as The
Party Album, and as a video.
In
1981, he joined another "supergroup",
Rocket 88,
a project led by
Ian Stewart
based around boogie-woogie keyboard players, which
featured a rhythm section comprising Jack Bruce and
Charlie Watts, among others, as well as a horn section.
They toured Europe and released an album on
Atlantic Records.
Alexis Korner, a lifelong smoker, died of
lung cancer
on
January 1,
1984,
aged 55
References
Other
references
Alexis
Korner: The Biography, written by Harry Shapiro and
including a wonderful discography by Mark Troster, was
published in 1997.
Selected UK
discography (LPs unless otherwise stated)
