Chris Barber

CHRIS BARBER’S 50th ANNIVERSARY TOUR BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE Accolades for an English musician don’t come more exotic than a description of Chris Barber as the “Bix Beiderbecke of British-style jazz” – this, from the pen of musicologist David Boulton back in 1958. Not that this kind of plaudit about Barber is confined to the past, nor to the jazz world: for instance, this year’s UK Blues Guitarist of the Year, Stan Webb, told the BBC “My first thing I heard about anything to do with British blues? I loved Chris Barber, and have done to this day. He actually has graced the stage with me at the Marquee many years ago.” And staying in the world of blues, the recently published reference work Blues-Rock Explosion emphasises how “Chris Barber, Alexis Korner, Lonnie Donegan and Cyril Davies…..these were the real founding fathers of what became the British 1960s blues-rock explosion.” Both of these quotes expose an obscured truth about Barber and his Jazz and Blues Band: namely, that without the man who next year celebrates 50 years as a pro band leader, not only would British trad jazz have taken many more years to evolve - but also the British blues and rock scene would n... more...