British Blues

Movie director Martin Scorsese reckons that the British blues heroes of the '60s were paying homage to U.S. blues legends in the same way that French New Wave filmmakers were saluting the kings of Hollywood. Kings of the British blues, Cream were doing just that with Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," firing up the Delta with 1,000 volts of electricity that birthed a new generation of blues-infused outfits.

Not only did the U.K.'s bluesmen do a superlative job; they also laid solid foundations for all future rock, and in these tracks you sense the birth of something spectacular. Before Fleetwood Mac went pop, they had blues-rock guitar legends Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green; sample their version of Elmore James' "Shake Your Moneymaker."

Our Deep Cuts is where British blues truly digs in and tears it up. Consider Taste, who came storming out of Ireland under the leadership of six-string sorcerer Rory Gallagher and settled into Cream's vacant power-trio throne with smokin' slabs like "Sugar Mama (Live)." Then there's pre-Fleetwood Mac Christine McVie (né Christine Perfect), who wanders with her band Chicken Shack through that cold, blue, "Mean Old World."

In the late '60s, British Blues was a coveted badge of authenticity, a mark of separation from the hordes of perky, chart-friendly teenyboppers. Blues daddy John Mayall groomed a succession of future legends with his outfit, the Bluesbreakers. The roots of Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and the Rolling Stones were all fed with Mayall's blues fertilizer. Try "All Your Love" as a choice sample of Eric Clapton's work with the Bluesbreakers. Part salute, part reinvention, the British Blues made rock hard.