It was October 15, 1965 when 18-year-old travelled from Blackpool to Manchester to see the fourth visit to Britain of The American Folk Blues Festival. A rolling revue of blues legends, the original event was the brainchild of German promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau, who’d developed a relationship with bluesman . Through him they were able to persuade a stellar line-up – including Memphis Slim, T-Bone Walker and – to play a month of shows in Germany, Switzerland and the UK in 1962.
Three years later, when the teenaged Anderson went to see the 1965 festival, Hooker was back, alongside Big Mama Thornton, Buddy Guy, Mississippi Fred McDowell and more. But it wasn’t one of the big stars who changed everything for the future founder – it was a lesser-known Chicago blues guitarist and singer-songwriter named JB Lenoir. Lenoir was 36 at this point, and would die less than two years later.
He left a slim legacy of recordings, but it’s a legacy that lived on, and its influence spread among those who saw him live or heard those recordings. “If he’s not directly connected with rock, he’s what drove people like us, so his pedigree means he’s a very important precursor of classic rock,” Anderson says. “Almost alone among blues artists – I might be tempted to say alone – he had a great sense of social justice, and didn’t just do rolling-and-tumbling, sexually laced lyrics.
He sang about Vietnam and the protest marches in Alabama – he watched his brothe.