From 1962 to 1972, the American Folk Blues Festival,
featuring no less than eighty different artists, popularized blues music all over Europe. The project initiated
by German jazz critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt came
to life thanks to Willie Dixon who recruited most of
the musicians and mentored them for the first three
years. The tour was produced by two blues enthusiasts from Hamburg, Horst Lippman and Fritz Rau.
The show met with instant success, and in three
years’ time the number of countries toured was extended to fifteen, from the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany to Sweden or Poland. Each tour lasted
about twenty days, often including several concerts
on the same day, sometimes in different locations.
A variety of styles were presented, from country
blues to the modern Chicago sound; guitar instrumentals, boogie-woogie piano, and performances
by some urban pre–World War II celebrities such as
Victoria Spivey or Lonnie Johnson were part of a
ritual event that always ended in a jam session.
The AFBF opened the European scenes to
blues performers. John Lee Hooker, Sam ‘‘Lightnin’ ’’
Hopkins, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Howlin’ Wolf
became quite popular, and the new market for blues
records stayed ahead of the American market for
several years.
But criticism soon arose from the growing audience for blues. The shows were often improvised,
country singers like Sleepy John Estes and Robert
Pete Williams did not perform at their best in large
concert halls, most musicians were disconcerted by
the silent and respectful attitude of the audience,
and a pedagogic purpose somewhat forced musicians
like Hubert Sumlin and Muddy Waters into acoustic
playing. Efforts were made to feature young artists
such as Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and Otis Rush in
1965 and 1966, efficient sidemen Jack Myers and Fred
Below, and some of the greatest rediscoveries in 1967:
Eddie ‘‘Son’’ House, Nehemiah ‘‘Skip’’ James, and
Bukka White. Yet the heteroclite AFBF could not
compete with new festivals that featured complete
sets of blues musicians, or the historical B. B. King
show in 1968.
Thanks to ‘‘The Original’’ Festival, Europe discovered that blues was more than a mythical source of
jazz music. The most obvious impact was the birth of
British Blues, and another unexpected result was encouragement for performers such as J. B. Lenoir to
adopt acoustic styles. Both effects took the music out
of its original context, but the artists themselves
gained international recognition that helped the
blues to revive in its own birthplace.
PATRICE CHAMPAROU
Bibliography
Dixon, Willie, and Don Snowden. I Am the Blues. London:
Da Capo Press, 1989.
Videography
American Folk Blues Festival 1962–1969. 2 vols. DVD.
Santa Monica CA: Universal Music & VI, 2003–2004.
Discography
American Folk Blues Festival 1962–1965 (Evidence ECD
26100; 5 audio CDs, boxed set).