Brian Knight born 14 October 1939

Brian Knight (October 14, 1939 - September 25, 2001) was a wonderful guitarist, blues singer and harmonica player  who came from that late-1950s repertory company of musicians who provided the cast for the 60s British rhythm and blues boom, but achieved little fame - or money - from it. 

Brian was working class, born in north-west London. In the early 1950s, a radio era dominated by crooners, what impressed him was the black American blues singer Josh White, and interest had been sparked. In the mid-1950s, he got his first job as a panel beater in a London garage. Also employed there was the pioneer British blues harmonica player, Cyril Davies. 

Davies invited Brian to visit the Wardour Street Roundhouse pub - the venue for Davies and Korner's London Skiffle Club and the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. It was there that Brian heard Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Muddy Waters. In those days, aficionados of American music headed to its source by the cheapest route, by signing up on a merchant ship. So, like the jazzman Ken Colyer, a New Orleans enthusiast, Brian headed west. He spent two years in the US coastal trade, from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine, learning guitar and absorbing the music, visiting black clubs and gospel halls. 

Brian Jones

Back home in 1957 he played his first gig, at the White Hart in Southall. He turned down an invitation from Korner to join Blues Incorporated, as a vocalist. But then at the beginning of the 60s, he met Brian Jones at an Ealing r 'n' b club. Jones was forming a band, and Brian became its vocalist; but Brian was a devotee of Muddy Waters, while Jones favoured Chuck Berry, and down such sectarian divisions the band plunged. Jones departed for what became the Rolling Stones while Brian created Blues By Six. 

Electric blues was supplanting the "trad" jazz craze, and in clubs Blues By Six, featuring drummer Charlie Watts, became immensely popular, and also backed touring American bluesmen. They gained prestigious London residencies at the Marquee and 100 Club, often supported by The Rollin' Stones Group. Overworked Watts, still holding down a day job, moved on, to Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated.

                Here’s “Movin’ Down Country” from above album.

                                   

The times did not treat Brian kindly. In 1964 Cyril Davies died of leukaemia. Two years later an exhausted Brian quit the music business and bought a garage. In 1967 he married Davies's widow, Marie. It wasn’t until the early 70's that Brian, itching to play again, was reunited with Geoff Bradford in a band simply called The Bradford - Knight Blues Band. 

As a blues star, Brian continued to shine, and from the 70's - 90's he performed with Fairport Convention's Bruce Rowland, Ian Stewart (the sixth Stone), Charlie Watts, Peter Green, Dana Gillespie, Paul Jones, Ronnie Lane, Georgie Fame, Zoot Money, Chris Farlowe, Micky Moody, Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton - the list is endless. 

And then there was Terry and McGhee. Brian had the habit of showing up on their tours - and at their after-show jam sessions. One night, at the Half Moon pub in Putney in 1975, the two Americans were playing when in walked Brian. McGhee put down his guitar, and switched to piano. “He was not playing,” he announced, when "there was a proper guitarist" around. 

After two successful decades of touring and performing, he finally got to record his debut in 1976 on the Freedom label. From 1981 he was to record five more albums. In his later years he played acoustic guitar and harmonica in East Anglian pubs, inviting local musicians to join him on stage. Brian was an outstanding musician, and if his life history was closer to those of the black Americans who were his inspiration than those of the rock stars who admired him, well, that is perhaps the way he would have preferred it. 

Brian Knight died of cancer aged 61on September 25, 2001. 

(Edited from a John Pilgrim obit @ The Guardian & Amazon notes)