BLUESMAN - JOHN BALDRY

I gotta say I have 3 uptown heros.  Delbert McClinton, Lloyd Jones, and Long John Baldry.  I don't know if you are familiar with any of these guys, but you should be.  Delbert is the most special vocally and on stage.  Lloyd is one great guitar player and writer and when I first heard him I thought it was Delbert singing.  But Baldry has to take the hero cake.  Way, way back John Baldry introduced American Blues to some English dudes who took hold of it and made it their own.  He gave starts, (by that I mean he gave positions in his band) to Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce, Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll, and gave a dude named Reginald Dewitt another name, Elton John. He started Dave Davies of the Kinks.  He was openly Gay, which I do not give a damn about one way or another. Your business.  He influenced the Beatles.  He later moved to Canada where he lived until he died.  His album It Ain't Easy from 1971 is one of the best produced albums I have ever heard.  It took a bunch of English dudes to open America's eyes to the Blues and Long John Baldry led the English.  He sort of led the American invasion of the blues in England before the English dudes turned blues into Rock and the English Invasion of the late 60's forever changed music.