Welcome to allthirteenkeys! This blog is devoted to my research on blues and jazz. I also teach piano, voice, and harmonica.
The aim of this blog is to encourage conversation and critical debate about the blues – a music that is thought of as ‘universal’, ‘American’, and ‘African American’. I am interested in how people have told the story of the blues, and changing social and cultural meanings the blues has had for both its African American, American, and international listeners and performers. I hope to encourage my readers to ask questions about the music they listen to, hoping that together we can uncover what the blues means to us in the present day.
I am currently working on my PhD at King’s College London, researching the influence of the British jazz and folk ‘revival’ movements on the early reception and performance of the blues in Britain. From January-May 2016, I was a British Research Council Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. In 2017, I will be an Edison Visiting Fellow at the British Library, London.
Please comment on posts, link to responses or related articles, etc to help this blog grow!
If you would like to read any of my research papers or book reviews, please visit the Research page.
Lawrence Davies
King’s College London
[Click on the word cloud to see the most common themes on this blog. Word cloud courtesy of Tagxedo.]
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allthirteenkeys 
I work with a Canadian, Todd Allen, on the start of electric blues in the
UK. A story which started back in the early1950s.
Much of what we have pulled together is on the Cyril Davies web site
http://www.cyrildavies.com
running from trad jazz to acoustic country blues to amplified Chicago blues
and the UK blues boom in 1962/3/4.
I am also involved with the Ealing Club project which is just coming to
fruition with the completion of the film about the music scene which
started in 1962 and involved many famous musicians including the Rolling Stones..
I would love to know more about what you are studying and to see if any of
it overlaps with what we have been working on for over 10 years.