Alexis Korner

Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major influence on the sound of the British music scene in the 1960s, to an Austrian Jewish father and a mother of Greek, Turkish and Austrian descent. He spent his childhood in France, Switzerland and North Africa, and arrived in London in 1940 after the start of the Second World War. One memory of his youth was listening to a record by black pianist Jimmy Yancey during a German air raid. Korner said, "From then on all I wanted to do was play the blues."

After the war, Korner played piano and guitar (his first guitar was built by friend and author Sydney Hopkins, who wrote Mister God, This Is Anna) and in 1949 joined Chris Barber's Jazz Band where he met blues harmonica player Cyril Davies. They started playing together as a duo, started the influential London Blues and Barrelhouse Club in 1955 and made their first record together in 1957.

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.

Although Cyril Davies left the group in late 1962, 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 Free At Last was short-lived, Korner ensured its name lived on in part by christening another young group of aspiring musicians, Free. Korner was instrumental in the formation of the band in April 1968, and continued to mentor them until they secured a deal with Island Records.

Although he himself was a blues purist, Korner criticised better-known British blues musicians during the blues boom of the late 1960s 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 that included, among others, saxophone players Art Themen, Mel Collins, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and Lol Coxhill.

While touring Scandinavia he formed the band New Church with guitarist and singer Peter Thorup. and in 1977 he established a Sunday-night show on Radio 1, Alexis Korner's Blues and Soul Show, which ran until 1981.

1970s to 1984

In 1973, he and Peter Thorup formed another group, Snape, with Boz Burrell, Mel Collins, and Ian Wallace, who were previously together in King Crimson. He had a daughter, singer Sappho Gillett Korner (died 2006), and two sons, guitarist Nicholas 'Nico' Korner (died 1989) and sound engineer Damian Korner (died 2008).

Alexis Korner died in London from lung cancer on 1 January 1984, at the age of 55.

Album discography (selected UK and other releases) Blues from the Roundhouse 10-inch (1957) – Alexis Korner's Breakdown Group R&B from the Marquee (1962) – Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated Red Hot from Alex (1964) – Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated At the Cavern (1964) – Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated (1965) – Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated Sky High (1966) – Alexis Korner Blues Incorporated I Wonder Who (1967) Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated (re-issue of Sky High) – Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated A New Generation of Blues (1968) Both Sides (1970) – New Church CCS 1st (1970) – CCS Alexis Korner (1971) Bootleg Him! (1972) CCS 2nd (1972) – CCS Accidentally Borne in New Orleans (1972) – with Peter Thorup; Snape Live on Tour in Germany (1973) – with Peter Thorup; Snape The Best Band in the Land (1973) – CCS Alexis Korner (1974) Get Off My Cloud (1975) The Lost Album (1977) Just Easy (1978) The Party Album (1979) – Alexis Korner and Friends Me (1980) Rocket 88 (1981) – Rocket 88 Juvenile Delinquent (1984) Testament (1985) – with Colin Hodgkinson Live in Paris (1988) – with Colin Hodgkinson