British blues
Blues came to Britain from the 1930s onwards. Seamen brought records to British ports. During the Second World War and in the Cold War GIs brought them to Britain. During the 1950s Blues was popular with the British Jazz fans ( Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and the blues influenced Boogie-woogie of Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller). Also British labels like HMV and EMI began to sell jazz and blues records. Many people heard Blues for the first time when during the skiffle hightime when acts like Lonnie Donegan covered the songs of Leadbelly. When skiffle faded some of the musicians began to play pure blues music. Two of them were the guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies and the guitarist Alexis Korner. They ran a skiffle club in London but they closed the venue and reopened it as The London Blues and Barrelhouse Club. The skiffle club was a center of early blues concerts in Britain. Cyril Davis brought different acts to Britain like Big Bill Broonzy. He played a folk blues set and blues was seen in Britain mainly as form of folk music. This opinion had chanced when Muddy Waters came to Britain and played electric Chicago blues.