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backed him on his UK tour in late 1968. I saw Parker at the Marquee Club, and he played a
storming set, which included the Freddy King instrumental ‘Hideaway’ twice. I have never
understood why he was so overlooked after that, with just 2 (or maybe 3) albums on Black Top
later in his career, which are now very hard to find, although an excellent compilation of his early
work was released on cd a couple of years ago. According to Mike Vernon, Parker was not the
easiest person to work with, having very specific ideas about how things should be run in the
studio, which often were not in accord with what Vernon, as the producer, wanted. Consequently,
only the 2 tracks were recorded, and they did not work together again.

An amusing postscript to that tour was that, in about 1975, I advertised in the Melody Maker for
a bassist for my band of the day, and a chap named Dave Hutchins phoned up. The name rung a
bell as being a member of Parker’s UK band, so I asked him if he was one and the same person.
He was absolutely astonished that anyone
knew who he was, and happy to join my
Eddie Boyd little semi-pro blues band - and very good
he was too, as well as being a charming
bloke!

I don’t intend to rattle through every
release on Blue Horizon, which not only
would fill a book, but also be rather boring.
However, I would like to pick out a few
highlights, in my opinion, whilst at the
same time continuing to fill in the details of
the story.

Hot on the heels of the debut Fleetwood
Mac album was a single (‘The Big Boat’ b/w
‘Sent For You Yesterday’) and LP (“7936
South Rhodes” - by pianist Eddie Boyd, which was Eddie’s address in Chicago!) backed by Mac,
who had been working with him on his UK tour. I consider both to be fine examples of Boyd’s
relaxed style, with sympathetic backing from the Mac, and some archetypal Peter Green guitar
playing. The entire album, including the single, was recorded in one 6 hour session, during a very
busy period for all involved. The original recordings are hard to find now, but a few years ago
were rereleased as “Eddie Boyd - The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions”, which also include ‘Empty
Arms’ and ‘Miserable To Be Alone’ (from the earlier session with John Mayall), plus a couple of
other previously unreleased tracks recorded elsewhere that do not feature the British backing
musicians - apparently Boyd had been carrying around an acetate of those recordings for quite
a few years, and presented them to Vernon one day, with a request to get them released! Eddie
Boyd was a very popular visitor to this country, and, like so many of his fellow US blues musicians,
was quite astounded by the love and respect shown to him by the British and European audiences
when he toured with the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival, which was fast becoming a very
popular annual event. So much so, that after briefly returning to Chicago, he then left America
for good, and moved initially to Paris (where Memphis Slim and Mickey Baker were already living
and working), then to The Netherlands for a year, and finally Finland in 1970, where he remained
for the rest of his life, and married his wife Leila. He had also lived briefly in Belgium, Switzerland
and Denmark - truly a man who liked to keep moving!

As well as recording both UK and combinations of UK and US musicians, Vernon still sought
opportunities to work with lesser known US blues artistes, one of whom was Roosevelt Holts,