Various American Folk Blues Festival Live In Manchester 1962 CD

Manchester Free Trade Hall was host to two concerts on Sunday October 21st 1962 that acted as a catalyst to the nascent British Blues & R&B boom, on the verge of breaking out of its suburban home in Ealing, West London. The shows were promoted by Stockport-based Paddy MacKiernan under the Jazz Unlimited banner and attracted a crowd of around two thousand enthusiasts, who saw the first major concert in Britain to feature American bluesmen. Manchester was the only UK date on the 1962 American Folk-Blues Festival tour and it was attended by blues fans from all over the country through what Paul Jones called ‘the bush telegraph’. With Jones were Alexis Korner and Macclesfield-born John Mayall, plus extraordinarily a contingent of younger fans who had made the trip in a clapped out van from London.