Came across this. Historical, yes. Cool as can be, even more yes. Made me think how much I'd love to see the Stones do a blues revue like this without all the stage trappings and such. We long time fans would go apesh*t over it. Enjoy.

[www.youtube.com]

A lot of this stuff has been released on record!

[en.wikipedia.org]

Yes, this is great, great footage. Thanks dmay for posting this gem up!

There's four sets of DVDs of this material. I bought all of them almost twenty years ago. I met the group that owns that footage, Reel In The Years. They produced some wonderful rock documentaries, including a Small Faces/Dusty Springfield/Gerry and the Pacemakers British Invasion boxset, along with a stand alone Hollies doc. I've communicated with them from time to time over the years, especially Dave Peck. They first got into it when they met Chuck Leavell, who in time introduced them to Charlie. Once Charlies trusted them he turned them onto some archives in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe that had some great jazz footage. They released those in a series called Jazz Icons.

Unfortunately the DVD market bottomed out and they could no longer find distributors for their work. They made a documentary on the Pretty Things called Midnight to Six in 2012 that's never seen the light of day.

It's really a shame. They contributed to Crossfire Hurricane, the live German footage. I was hoping they could get to other British Invasion groups, or even 50s rockers before they passed away. I think a Zombies/Kinks/Animals would have made a great second boxset. Unfortunately some of those people have indeed passed away since then.

This is interesting:

"Manchester was the only UK date on the 1962 American Folk-Blues Festival tour and it was attended by blues fans from all over the country through what Manfred Mann singer, broadcaster and actor Paul Jones called 'the bush telegraph

With Jones were Alexis Komer and Macclesfield-born John Mayall, plus extraordinarily a contingent of younger fans who had made the trip in a clapped out van from London

Why extraordinary? Because the van contained some of the future superstars of the British music scene Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page.

The Stones by this time had just a dozen gigs under their belts and Page had recently embarked on the first stage of his career as a session guitarist

David Williams dedicates a whole chapter to the road trip in his book The First Time We Met The Blues: "It must have been around early September 1962 when news filtered down the grapevine. We could hardly believe that real blues artists were going to appear here in our country. They were regarded somewhat like mystic gods within our circle. Jimmy Page realised that he would not be able to make the journey with us as he was already booked to play a gig with Neil Christian on the Saturday night so it was agreed Jim would travel up by train on the Sunday and we would find space for him in the van for the journey back overnight. Graham Ackers was a pretty good driver and soon managed to find his way through Central London to a square-where we picked up Mick Keith and Brian."

Keith Richards remembers it differently. "Mick sometimes had the use of his parents Triumph Herald at the weekend and remember we went to see a big blues show in Manchester.

Jimmy Page recalls: "When David Williams told me of the impending visit of the initial American Folk-Blues Festival to England, I was keen to join the pilgrimage to Manchester. It was not only the first time that I would actually see artists like John Lee Hooker and T-Bone Walker perform, but it was also the first time I met Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Keith Richards, who came with us on the trip. We were all like-minded enthusiasts and in those days we regarded the artists we were going to see as idols."

[manchesterbeat.com]