Long John Baldry helped found the British blues scene, inspired Eric Clapton, discovered Rod Stewart, and gave his name to Elton John: He was also the voice of Sonic The Hedgehog's Dr Ivo Robotnik
Long John Baldry’s influence extends far beyond his pivotal role in founding the British blues scene in the early 1960s. Seeing Long John perform in the early 1960s sealed Eric Clapton’s intention to become a professional musician. Then it was Baldry who discovered Rod ‘The Mod’ Stewart and gave him his first gig in 1964. And a few years later, Elton John chose his stage surname in Long John’s honour; and when Elton topped the single charts in 1975 with Someone Saved My Life Tonight the ‘someone’ that the song was written about was none other than Long John. Stewart and John remained good friends of Long John’s until his untimely passing in July 2005, aged 64.
He had a middle-class upbringing in 1950s north London and he first heard American blues, aged 12, on a neighbour’s gramophone. “A couple of doors down,” he told this writer in 2003, “was a painter called Oliver Graham Bradbury. Later Oliver’s fame made him enough money to buy a string of racehorses… it’s not often you hear of painters buying racehorses! Anyway, he turned me on to Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy around about 1953.”
American blues records were very hard to get hold of in post war Britain so it was mostly down to luck and networking that Baldry’s generation began to get access to this faraway music. Young John soon became deeply fascinated by the voice and 12-string guitar sound of Huddie Leadbetter – Leadbelly. Aged 14, he got his first guitar – a 12- string made by a furniture builder and future guitar-making legend, Tony Zemaitis.
Like other blues-obsessed teenagers at that time, Baldry then gravitated towards the Soho skiffle and folk scene where in the mid 50s he played in the Thameside Four and then met and formed a duo with the renowned acoustic guitar visionary, Davy Graham.
By then he known as Long John Baldry, he tried to be a musician by night whilst holding down a day-job as a commercial artist. But then he turned professional in 1960 as blues slowly was gaining a foothold as part of the British trad jazz scene. His first pro gig was touring Denmark with the Bob Cort Skiffle group, then in July 1961 he joined the Ken Sim’s Jazz Band, and after that guested with Acker Bilk and Chris Barber.
Increasingly during the 1950s, band leader Chris Barber had invited over American bluesmen like Big Bill Broonzy and Lonnie Johnson. (Brit skiffle star, Tony Donegan, adopted the name ‘Lonnie’ after appearing on the same bill as Johnson.) Broonzy died in 1958, the year when British blues rock first saw the light coming from a visiting torchbearer of Chicago blues. As Long John explained: “That was the year that Muddy Waters and Otis Spann came over and then, of course, everyone castigated them and said ‘Oh my God… we can’t bear all this rock’n’roll!’”
Today it beggars belief that the reason why Muddy Waters back then was the unacceptable face of rock’n’roll was simply because he played electric guitar through an amplifier. Similarly, trad jazzers in the years after 1958 would sometimes try to stunt the growth of Britain’s homegrown rhythm and blues movement, because, as they saw things, this music was an aberration – it was amplified sound!
Similarly, in early 1962 two future Baldry collaborators and founders of British blues – Alexis Korner and harmonica player and guitarist, Cyril Davies – were kicked out of a regular gig at London’s Roundhouse for no better reason than the pub’s landlord also objected to amplifiers.
The evicted pair then moved to the Ealing Club in March 1962 which was a damp basement jazz venue below an ABC tea shop. Here they were allowed to make noise in peace. It was also at Ealing that Korner and Davies consolidated and established Blues Incorporated – the first ever white-boy blues band in the world, who had earlier debuted at the Marquee club, then also a jazz venue. At the Ealing club, Long John Baldry was Blues Incorporated’s first vocalist, along with Art Wood. The rest of the band comprised Dick Heckstall-Smith on sax, drummer Charlie Watts, bassist Andy Hoogenboom, with Keith Scott on piano.
Alexis operated an open-mic policy: “Alexis was too hospitable,“ recalled Baldry, “other musicians and I did not want to share the stage with 20 other singers.” These then-unknowns included Mick Jagger, Eric Burdon and Paul Jones. So in July 1962 Long John left to tour Germany with the Swiss Storyville Hot Six as well as the Melbourne N.O.J.B. and by the end of that year had made quite a name for himself. Word soon got back to the UK.
Back home that November, two significant developments took place in Long John’s absence: Decca’s Ace of Clubs label released a Blues Incorporated album on which he sang, called R&B From The Marquee. Secondly, the five year partnership between Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies ended.
British blues was already beginning to splinter, with Korner focusing more on jazz influences such as Charles Mingus, whilst Davies’ bag was the pure stuff – Muddy Waters Band Chicago blues. Alexis and Cyril both now wanted Long John in their respective groups. Korner even took care of travel expenses to get him back to England and for a while he appeared with both bands before settling with Cyril Davies and The R&B All Stars in January 1963.
1963 was the year that British R&B went into overdrive. In the space of that one year a splinter group from Blues Incorporated – the Rollin’ Stones (named after a Muddy Waters’ lyric) – had gone from obscurity into world-domination mode – adding a ‘g’ to their name on the way.
The band’s ascent began on Wednesday January 9th with a new residency at the Red Lion pub in Sutton, Surrey. This was Charlie Watts first Stones’ gig replacing the sacked Tony Chapman. But as far as mid-1960s’ Brit-blues musicology is concerned, it was the Stones’ guitar-based Chuck Berry/ Bo Diddley take on R&B which marked them out from the rest – and took them into the pop charts, with blues-based bands like the Yardbirds hot on their heels.
Meanwhile Cyril Davies and Long John Baldry stuck to their Muddy Waters harmonica/ vocals groove, whilst Alexis Korner went for jazz-tinged blues – significantly, it was sax and Hammond organ player Graham Bond who replaced Cyril in Blues Incorporated.
The tragically untimely death of Cyril Davies – in January 1964 – resulted in Long John taking over as leader of the All Stars and renaming the band the Hoochie Coochie Men. Enter Rod ‘The Mod’ Stewart on vocals.
It was totally by chance on the platform at Twickenham railway station that Long John first heard Rod Stewart singing one night after Rod had attended a gig at the Eel Pie Island R&B venue. What Baldry instantly recognised was a raw talent which he then nurtured in his band. According to legend, Stewart’s first ever song sung on stage with the Hoochie Coochie Men was greeted with a stony silence from the crowd, but Long John stuck to his conviction that here was a massive talent.
That band split after releasing one single and the album Long John’s Blues, and in July 1965 Baldry formed Steampacket – a soul revue with himself, Stewart and Julie Driscoll on vocals, backed by a band including organist Brian Auger. Surprisingly unsuccessful, Steampacket split in May 1966 after which Baldry formed Bluesology. Enter keyboardist Reg Dwight and sax player Elton Dean: of course Reg then soon morphed into Elton John.
After Bluesology, 1967 and 1968 saw Long John’s controversial brush with middle-of-the-road chart success in the shape of the number one ballad Let The Heartaches Begin and then the theme for the 1968 Olympics – Mexico.
Rod Stewart and Elton John co-produced Long John’s early-1970s albums It Ain’t Easy and Everything Stops For Tea which charted in America. But this proved to be a short-lived return to the spotlight. Sadly, mental health problems and hospitalisation followed during the 1970s after which, typically, Long John let the world know he’d recovered by releasing 1979’s Baldry’s Out album. He released in the region of 40 albums during his career.
Baldry also had a parallel career in TV and film, first appearing in the 1971 Up Pompeii! spin-off Up the Chastity Belt, alongside Frankie Howerd and Eartha Kitt, and did many voiceovers for TV programmes and commercials. The most famous of these was as the voice of Dr Ivo Robotnik on the popular kids’ animated series The Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog.
Long John settled in Vancouver in 1980, became a Canadian citizen and then frequently toured Canada and North-west America. But he returned to his blues roots in the new millennium: his final studio album was called Remembering Leadbelly, and in 2004-2005 on several occasions he fronted the British Blues All Stars – a blues festivals outfit masterminded by British blues piano stalwart Bob Hall. It featured, on occasion, Peter Green, Kim Simmonds, Dave Kelly, and Tom McGuinness.
Those artists and musicians who had the pleasure of knowing and working with Long John Baldry throughout his career now all give similar eulogies about the man’s personality: he could be utterly outrageous and yet he remained a perfect gentleman; he was always very self-effacing about both his encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the blues, and of the crucial role he played throughout the birth of British blues in the early 1960s.
Long John lost a four-month long fight against a severe chest infection on July 21 2005, in Vancouver. He was 64.
