Blues In Britain magazine is launching a campaign to have plaques mounted at key sites from the 1960s British blues boom. They want signs to be posted outside the buildings that once contained the venues that hosted the early gigs of the likes of the Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters. That might include the site of the now defunct Ealing Club in West London where the Rolling Stones used to play and the South Kensington building which once housed Blaise's, where Jimi Hendrix performed.
The magazine, which will launch its campaign at London’s Jazz Café tomorrow, are planning to stage a public vote to nominate and then choose which sites should be marked in this way.
A spokesman for the magazine told reporters that he hoped the project would remind people of the UK’s role in revitalising the blues music scene in the sixties: "We hope these plaques will draw attention to Britain's previously unrecognised role in saving blues music. People here have never had the same sense of ownership about blues music as they have with say the Beatles, but Britain's part was very important.”
On where some of the plaques might be placed, the spokesman continued: “The plaques will not just be confined to big cities as we hope to feature unusual places like US air force bases in East Anglia, where the American stars used to play."