"The British feel of blues has been hard, rather than emotional. Far too much emphasis on 12 bar, too little attention to words, far too little originality"
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Korner’s jab lands because it’s aimed at a particular kind of reverence: the British blues habit of treating the form like a museum piece. “Hard, rather than emotional” isn’t a complaint about volume or distortion so much as a critique of posture. “Hard” suggests a cultivated toughness, a gear-and-groove mindset that can be perfected in rehearsal. “Emotional” points to something messier and riskier: phrasing that cracks, timing that drifts, a voice that sounds lived-in rather than well-trained. He’s calling out a scene that learned the blues through records and chord charts, then performed it as craft.
The “far too much emphasis on 12 bar” line skewers the way British players often clung to structure as a substitute for language. The 12-bar progression is a skeleton; Korner is saying too many bands worshipped the bones and forgot the blood. When he complains about “too little attention to words,” he’s defending the blues as storytelling, not just a lick vocabulary. Lyrics are where identity shows up, where specificity lives, where humor and cruelty and confession share a mic. Strip that out and you get stylized grit, not stakes.
Context matters: Korner was a key catalyst in the UK blues boom, mentoring and collaborating with younger musicians who’d go on to define British rock. That gives the critique bite. It’s not an outsider sneer; it’s a self-policing warning from someone who helped build the scene and could see its main temptation: imitation dressed up as authenticity. “Far too little originality” is the tell. He’s arguing that if British blues is going to be more than a translation exercise, it has to stop hiding behind form and start speaking in its own accent.
The “far too much emphasis on 12 bar” line skewers the way British players often clung to structure as a substitute for language. The 12-bar progression is a skeleton; Korner is saying too many bands worshipped the bones and forgot the blood. When he complains about “too little attention to words,” he’s defending the blues as storytelling, not just a lick vocabulary. Lyrics are where identity shows up, where specificity lives, where humor and cruelty and confession share a mic. Strip that out and you get stylized grit, not stakes.
Context matters: Korner was a key catalyst in the UK blues boom, mentoring and collaborating with younger musicians who’d go on to define British rock. That gives the critique bite. It’s not an outsider sneer; it’s a self-policing warning from someone who helped build the scene and could see its main temptation: imitation dressed up as authenticity. “Far too little originality” is the tell. He’s arguing that if British blues is going to be more than a translation exercise, it has to stop hiding behind form and start speaking in its own accent.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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