"The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters"
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Korner’s line is a backhanded compliment dressed up as scene-making. “Parallel development” sounds like a historian’s tidy diagram, but he’s really talking about musical legitimacy: the American blues tradition didn’t just inspire Britain’s early-60s revival; it kept evolving on its own track, producing figures so intense and contemporary that the British movement couldn’t pretend to be the main event.
Dropping “Johnny Winters” (Korner means Johnny Winter) as the punchline is doing work. Winter, the Texas albino guitar phenom who broke nationally in the late 60s, represented a kind of authenticity that British blues acolytes were chasing and, at times, commercially benefiting from. Korner isn’t denying Britain’s achievements - he helped build that scene - but he is puncturing any myth that the blues needed British reinterpretation to stay alive. America, he suggests, wasn’t a museum; it was still generating new monsters.
The subtext carries Korner’s familiar tension: evangelist for the British boom, uneasy gatekeeper of its moral accounting. By framing the two traditions as “parallel,” he avoids accusing his own movement of outright appropriation, while still implying a hierarchy. The result of American development is a singular, undeniable talent; the result of the British movement is… a movement, a collective industry, a feedback loop of reverence and commerce.
It’s also a savvy bit of self-positioning. Korner casts himself as the mediator who can authenticate both sides, then reminds his audience that the source culture remains capable of outpacing the revivalists.
Dropping “Johnny Winters” (Korner means Johnny Winter) as the punchline is doing work. Winter, the Texas albino guitar phenom who broke nationally in the late 60s, represented a kind of authenticity that British blues acolytes were chasing and, at times, commercially benefiting from. Korner isn’t denying Britain’s achievements - he helped build that scene - but he is puncturing any myth that the blues needed British reinterpretation to stay alive. America, he suggests, wasn’t a museum; it was still generating new monsters.
The subtext carries Korner’s familiar tension: evangelist for the British boom, uneasy gatekeeper of its moral accounting. By framing the two traditions as “parallel,” he avoids accusing his own movement of outright appropriation, while still implying a hierarchy. The result of American development is a singular, undeniable talent; the result of the British movement is… a movement, a collective industry, a feedback loop of reverence and commerce.
It’s also a savvy bit of self-positioning. Korner casts himself as the mediator who can authenticate both sides, then reminds his audience that the source culture remains capable of outpacing the revivalists.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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