British Blues - Decline

Decline

A rapid decline began at the end of 1960s. Surviving bands and musicians tended to move into other expanding areas of rock music. Some, like Jethro Tull followed bands like the Moody Blues away from 12-bar structures and harmonicas into complex, classical-influenced progressive rock. Some played a loud version of blues rock, that became the foundation for hard rock and heavy metal. Led Zeppelin, formed by former Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page, on their first two albums, both released in 1969, fused heavy blues and amplified rock to create what has been seen as a watershed in the development of hard rock and nascent heavy metal. Later recordings would mix in elements of folk and mysticism, which would also be a major influence on heavy metal music. Deep Purple developed a sound based on "squeezing and stretching" the blues, and achieved their commercial breakthrough with their fourth and distinctively heavier album, In Rock (1970), which has been seen as one of one of heavy metal's defining albums. Black Sabbath was the third incarnation of a group that started as the Polka Truck Blues Band in 1968. Their early work in included blues standards, but by the time of their second album Paranoid (1970), they had added elements of modality and the occult that would largely define modern heavy metal. Some, like Korner and Mayall, continued to play a "pure" form of the blues, but largely outside of mainstream notice. The structure of clubs, venues and festivals that had grown up in the early 1950s in Britain virtually disappeared in the 1970s.