Lyrics | Artists | Alexis Korner

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Alexis Korner

Blues

Early R&B

Soul music

Alexis Korner was the driving force of the 1960s British blues boom and an inspiration for many of the young R&B/rock artists who subsequently found international fame. Born in Paris to an Austrian Jewish father and a half-Turkish half-Greek mother, Korner grew up in France, Switzerland and North Africa, arriving in London in 1940 at the start of the Second World War. A record by pianist Jimmy Yancey converted him to blues and, taking up piano and guitar after the war, he joined Chris Barber's Jazz Band. In Barber's band he met Cyril Davies and they started performing together as...