Читать книгу Fitting In - Colin Thompson - Страница 61

Jazz gave way to rock and roll and rhythm and blues and then in March 1962, only five minutes’ walk from where I lived, The Ealing Club arrived – the thin end of the wedge that would change the world forever. Standards were falling. There would be tears before bed time and even Baby Jesus would not be able to save us.

Between two shops by the railway, a set of stone steps led down into the darkness to a footpath that followed the railway for a few hundred yards before turning left into a lane of narrow workshops and coming out again at the shops around the corner, and at the bottom of the steps was The Ealing Club, which was started by a Scotsman in tartan trousers called Alexis Korner.

It was another world, something far too alien to have come from another country, but something that must have travelled across galaxies. For a start there was noise, not accidental noise, but magnificent noise that carried a hypnotic beat. Someone had picked up a piece of New Orleans, magnified it and dropped it in Ealing, where it shouted so loud it drowned out any protests.

The first time I heard it, I was hooked. The music leapt into my veins and burst into my head with frantic excitement. Rhythm and blues synchronised with the beat of my heart, a door opened that would never close and I flew to another world.

The man on the stage with the guitar had skin-tight tartan trousers and pointed shoes and wild hair, and magic came out of his mouth. Alexis Korner sang the blues, and over the next eternity there were more guitars and there was more noise. And not just any noise, but noise that was the beginning of greatness.