Did Muddy Waters’ First UK Tour Launch The British Blues Boom?

Did Muddy Waters’ First UK Tour Launch The British Blues Boom?

The setting for Muddy Waters’ first UK gig may have been relatively sedate – the Odeon Theatre, Leeds – and rather formal (as part of the mainly classical Leeds Centenary Music Festival). But on October 16, 1958, when the Chicago bluesman hit the stage as part of a series of jazz concerts, you could say the earth shook in more ways than one. The man born McKinley Morganfield had an uninhibited sexual charisma. It wasn’t just the way he moved his…