World-renowned archivist, author and blues educator, Stefan Grossman learned at the feet of the greats during the 60s folk and blues revival in the US. He appeared on a few records in the mid-60s before making his debut album How To Play Blues Guitar (Elektra, 1966). As with Jimi Hendrix, his arrival in the UK marked the true start of his career. “I was here to sight-see,” Stefan told an interviewer in 1975, “and at that point I had never played solo. I went to see the Young Tradition at a club. They said, ‘Why don’t you play?’ I did and it was very enjoyable. I got good reviews from that guest spot… I was playing music 26 hours a day, but it took me a long time to realise I was a musician.”
Two albums for Fontana (1968-69) were followed by seven for Transatlantic (1970–77), and then a few for his own label Kicking Mule and for Shanachie (1978-90). Between 1968-87, Stefan lived in Britain and later Italy, writing books, making records and touring exclusively in Britain and Europe. He moved back to the States in 1987 and withdrew from touring for many years, focusing on his label venture, Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, which continues to be the gold standard for instructional audio-visual material on folk, blues and jazz playing styles alongside an impressive catalogue of historical performances.
This Repertoire box set does for Stefan what he has done for many others: it brings together rare and previously unreleased performances and anthologises them for posterity and sheer enjoyment. Curated, in collaboration with the artist, by Bert Jansch biographer Colin Harper and annotated by legendary British folk journalist Robin Denselow (whose notes accompanied Stefan’s very first live album back in 1973), Stefan Grossman Live at the BBC precisely covers his ‘European era’ of 1968-1987 with four hours of BBC studio sessions and concert recordings that are almost all previously unreleased.
A 1968 Alexis Korner session showcases Stefan the blues scholar, while two 1971 John Peel Sunday Concerts find him at ease as the rambunctious ringmaster at a counter-cultural circus. The later concerts reveal Stefan as an elder statesman of the 60s folk revival, with that dry-as-dust humour intact and his playing even better than ever. This 4CD set is an exhilarating alternative anthology of Stefan Grossman’s most prolific and influential years, packed with sensational solo performances and duets with a coterie of his greatest peers in the acoustic guitar world – John Renbourn, Duck Baker and Jo-Ann Kelly, among them.
