I first became aware of Rhythm and Blues as a teenager back in the early 60s when a friend of mines' elder sister had a couple of albums by Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. These were pretty rare back then and I had never heard anything like it before. I was immediately drawn to the brilliant raw sound of these Chicago blues bands and secretly fell in love with the blues and the sister. Over the next year the coming of the Rolling Stones introduced me to the British Blues angle and the raft of home grown rhythm and blues from bands like Graham Bond and Alexis Corner. But it was John Mayhall's Bluesbreakers with guitarists like Eric Clapton that really honed my appreciation of the Blues guitar and in 1968 I was bought my first guitar. With the guitar giants of the mid 60s like Hendrix and Clapton the sound of the blues found a new and thrilling voice pumped up through Strats and Marshall cabs and the rock guitarist was the thing to be. R and B kind of moved away in the later 60s as the pop mainstream incorporated its riffs and styles and guitarists like Eric Clapton went on to form Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker but at heart they were still one of the great blues bands, check out Crossroads, it still sound utterly compelling even today. For me the term Rhythm and Blues meant Elmore James , Howling wolf and the Chicago sound but later on in the 60s it lost its original meaning for me as the American soul giants hijacked the term. However amazingly, at the same time, more and more blues guitar records became available from earlier country Blues players and around 1969 I first heard the crackly vinyl recordings of Robert Johnson and other greats such as Blind Blake, Blind Willie Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell and Leroy Carr, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Furry Lewis and the astonishing Skip James. Sold to the skinny white boy from Nottingham.. By the time Led Zeppelin started I could hear the material from these earlier Delta blues players twisted and shaped by the great guitar playing of Jimmy Page and even through its excesses into prog rock the blues guitarists style and riffs were still clearly recognisable. Things were moving away from the blues as a main stream genre by the mid 70s but there was a blue print laid down by one of the greatest exponents of R and B and a blueprint that has spawned a million imitators. Enter the good doctor. The original line-up of Doctor Feelgood distilled the crucial elements of playing a live R and B set and dragged it screaming through 70s. Dismissively called Pub rock Dr Feelgood combined the rock solid rhythm section with the searing edge of Wilko Johnson's Telecaster and proved beyond all doubt that rhythm and blues could be both exiting and fun and played by white boys..I had an idea.......