BBC4TV showed a terrific film about the music scene on a little island in west London. The island is called Eel Pie Island and sits in the Thames, near Richmond. You can watch the film, here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gp1k
The scene started in the 1950s as a traditional jazz venue but grew to include Delta Blues from New Orleans. This music was mostly unknown back then, in the UK and especially in the USA.
A generation of British musicians – Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page amongst many others – began to combine rock-and roll, electrical amplification and blues to create a hybrid form called, rhythm and blues.
The interseting thing is that R+B could never have developed in the USA in the same way. The segregation of people and culture would never have allowed it. Nor could this hybrid have emerged anywhere but west London…the schools and colleges of the area supported just the right kind of musical curiosity…
Terrific.
If you are interested in the origins of modern popular music, look at this post from another of my blogs…It’s all about the railway between New Orleans and Chicago…