"They bought out the flower shop across from the philharmonic lock, stock, and barrel"

The organizer and ideologue of the British Blues Invasion festival, ambassador of British blues Boris Litvintsev—to whom we owe the fact that many current British blues musicians have toured (more than once) across Russia, Latvia, Armenia, and more recently Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan—tells us how music came into his life and how London influenced his musical tastes.

"Kometa"

In '63, when I was two years old, my parents made a one-time trip to Bulgaria during the Soviet era on an official travel voucher. And they brought back some records from there—maybe compilations. But there was definitely Ella Fitzgerald, there was definitely Sinatra, and there was some kind of blues-jazz dance compilation. So not pure blues, but something rhythm-and-blues-ish that could have been pressed in Bulgaria in those days.

And I remember it perfectly: I was small, my parents' friends would come over, elegantly dressed, everyone dancing, and that music became associated with celebration for me for the rest of my life. And even now, when guests come to my place, I put Sinatra or Aretha Franklin on in the background — it's just ingrained somewhere deep in my head.

A turning point — that was the first time in first grade. Specifically: September 1st, '68, I was coming home from school for the first time, I walked into our courtyard and realized the world had changed for me forever: my older brother had brought home a "Kometa-201" tape recorder, and he turned it up to full volume from the balcony.

Completely worn out, where the tape pinch was maintained with a matchbox due to excessive use by previous owners.

And there were two reels there: on one — December's Children (And Everybody's) and Beatles for Sale, for example, and on the other — like Aftermath and Rubber Soul. My mind was blown instantly.

It makes sense — before that, the courtyards echoed with Hill, Pyekha, all that stuff, at best…

Blues

I've remembered the cover of John Mayall's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton since childhood. Then I heard it a million times, but that visual image — it's from those times.

Jimi Hendrix — just a shock from Electric Ladyland, both the music and the cover…

The first Led Zeppelin—just mind-blowing!.. I heard it around the turn of '70 and '71, and it's basically four-fifths pure blues.

And blues kind of ran in the background throughout my life as a music lover. I'd dive deep into other genres, throw myself with tremendous force into prog-rock, starting right from the early '70s. And basically, I still follow how that genre develops.

But blues as the foundation of everything spread more and more inside me, and I dissolved into it. And it drew me in like quicksand.

And so, when I was studying in Canada in '98–'99, in Calgary, I went to a local blues festival, then visited my brother in Toronto, and from there I had the chance to make a trip to Chicago for the festival.

Then in 2004 I was in Chicago again, I came with my father to a scientific conference. And it just happened that the Chicago Blues Festival was taking place again.

Also an additional powerful impulse to really dive deeply into this thing, specifically.

At the end of 2004, my wife and daughter emigrated to Britain. I was constantly traveling to see them, spending long periods hanging out in London. And I'd spend every free evening trying to catch someone performing live somewhere.

London

And the main favorite spots — you can count them on the fingers of one hand. I've been to Ronnie Scott's a couple of times. But it's always expensive there, and you can't get in because everything sells out way in advance.

Ain't Nothing But… Blues Bar — such a famous spot. It's really MY place. I've seen everyone who performed there, and more than once, of course. And half of them later came to Russia for concerts. Some even came to Kazakhstan years later. I've seen so many people there!

Blues Kitchen in Camden or The Half Moon in Putney. The latter is basically a historical landmark: regular concerts have been happening there since 1963, where members of The Rolling Stones, Marc Bolan, and later Dr. Feelgood hung out, messed around, and often jammed — and pretty much everyone who was anyone passed through there…

And again, all my British friends overplayed back in the day, and nowadays they often do album presentations before a big British tour.

The very first person I saw at Ain't Nothing But… Blues Bar was Jimmy C. Sadly, this wonderful man left this world and, as I say in such cases, went to the Land of Eternal Rock and Roll — yes, my dear friend Jimmy C. Born Demetrio Koletzis, an ethnic Greek, a Canadian by passport, a citizen of the world and a resident of London.

That's exactly who I saw first. Right at the very first concert, when I came to this Ain't Nothing But… in December 2004.

He was an incredibly bright guy, just possessed this kind of inhuman charisma. He drew everyone in. I've practically never seen anyone else produce that kind of effect on an audience, regardless of their status, level, or anything like that.

Here's a sun-bright person, just possessed of some real, otherworldly charisma.

During the break he walked through the cramped hall with a pint in his hand, chatting with everyone.

This was his signature blues with a smile, eternal blues with a smile — that was his main characteristic. We exchanged a couple of words right during the break. I said to him: "I've seen all sorts of things, but this impression you make is just incredible — it's simply amazing! How about coming to Russia?"

He says: why not, if we plan it in advance, what's the problem. Of course, it took about 3.5 years from then to actually bring him over. Some infrastructure had to be built up, certain connections and opportunities had to develop. But anyway, I first brought him over in early July 2008 to the "Blues of the Neva Delta" festival, which my late friend Sergey "Steve" Nekrasov was running in Petersburg.

There was supposed to be another friend of mine performing there too, Frank Ash. He was listed and appeared on the posters. We were preparing for his arrival, but there were visa complications. He actually has a French passport, and he's been living in London since the late 1990s, so that's 27–28 years now.

And it turned out that with that French passport, he couldn't get a visa at the London consular office using the scheme we'd been using. He simply didn't manage to get the visa in time, and there was no way we could afford to pay those crazy fees for some express business visa — we just couldn't manage it. So Frank didn't come then.

And Jimmy came, and it was only the first time. From that memorable performance at Delta Neva, he came to Russia eight more times in total and visited a record number of cities — nine or ten, I think?

Still Ain't Nothing But…

I saw a very young Amy Winehouse there in 2005 — before world fame. I saw Ian Siegal around the same time. Steve "Wessel" Weston, who about ten years later, if I remember correctly, recorded an album Going Back Home with Roger Daltrey and Wilko Johnson — the very one that brought Wilko Johnson back into the spotlight and gave Roger Daltrey a notable project outside of The Who.

This West Weston guy is a cool dude, a charismatic frontman and an amazing harmonica player. I met him back in 2005. I was planning to bring him over too. Some correspondence with him popped up in my email not long ago…

Who else? Big Joe Louis. And here's what's interesting: when I met him in 2005 after a concert, he seemed incredibly familiar to me. But by then he was already there, in 2005, a graying blond. And I remembered him as quite young, you could say a youthful, rosy-cheeked blond.

Where that came from is a separate story. Big Joe Louis, it turned out, was touring in Norway in 1991. And something very interesting happened there. At that moment there were young Komsomol members in Norway, budding businessmen. Well, this was right after the GKChP coup. You know, all the prominent Komsomol guys rushed straight into business, into joint ventures.

So I happened to be in Murmansk on some business around the time when these Komsomol guys brought Big Joe Louis from Norway to Murmansk. He played two concerts there. The local TV filmed it. And I made it to one of those concerts, and I remembered it — fourteen years later! — when I saw him at London's Ain't Nothing But. Nine more years passed, and in March or April 2014 I finally brought him over. That was the first regular season of British Blues Invasion.

And that was true for many: Ain't Nothing But… Blues Bar turned out to be something like a gathering point.

The Juice Squeezer

At some point, I wouldn't say I became friends, but I did strike up a conversation with Kevin, who was the owner of the place at the time, and with Mark, the manager.

And in some sense, I was struck by the scheme they operated under. It's not exactly a juke joint, but in a way it's really a kind of squeeze on musicians who never made it to the level of "big names" with contracts, large venues, and big fees, yet who nonetheless form the backbone of most festival lineups in Britain, in Europe.

Here's how it worked. At Ain't Nothing But… the club paid a band for the evening — back then and pretty much right up to now — 200–250 pounds, but in exchange the bands played four sets of 35–40 minutes each, sometimes longer. For that kind of grind — 50–70 pounds per guy — it was basically a squeeze. The only consolation for the musicians was free beer for everyone and free parking reserved for one car per band.

In the establishment itself there's practically no food, almost no tables: three small tables the width of an A4 sheet and two meters long — just to set down glasses of beer — and seating for maybe 12–15 people at most, with everyone else standing.

Free admission on weekdays, except Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On those days admission was nominally paid, but if you came around eight o'clock, before half past eight, you could get in for free, and the whole scene and music started after half past ten every day, and the party went on until one or two in the morning.

Yes, if you came early, you could basically get in for free. But then you'd end up drinking three, four, five, six pints of beer over the course of the evening, plus some hard liquor on top, and so all that fun would pay for itself one way or another.

Nominally, the entrance fee was about five pounds on Thursday and seven or ten pounds on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — depending on who was playing.

But the thing is, when you show up not at eight but a bit later — there's a line: five, seven, ten, fifteen, twenty people. It might move, or it might not. People go inside and they've got no reason to come back out — all the fun is in there!..

A Black man was standing in the doorway, two meters tall, twice as wide as he was tall, with an expression… A very kind expression on his face, but no one would think to argue with him. So this wasn't some bouncer doing face control—this was a straight-up bodyguard and enforcer. He stood there with a counter in his hands, literally counting the people inside.

The venue has a strict capacity of one hundred people, including musicians, bartenders, and the sound engineer.

In other words, roughly speaking, if there are two bartenders, four musicians, and a sound engineer — seven people — that means he can let in 93 people from the public. And this wonderful doorman, he keeps track: okay, those folks went out for a smoke, came back — yes, alright, go ahead, I've got you down. You're leaving for good? Well, okay. He subtracts one, lets one in. You could stand there all night and never get in. So you've got money in your hand, you want to get in, but they won't let you because there's a hundred-person capacity — and all hundred are already inside. They're strict about it. It's fire safety regulations.

Another license — for alcohol. And a curfew — a time restriction on how late you can play loud music.

And there's something interesting about the location: this little street, Kingley Street, runs roughly from Piccadilly Circus to Oxford Circus, parallel to Regent Street. And all around it are shopping areas and offices, and there's practically no residential housing. And that block where the building with Ain't Nothing But… is on the ground floor — nobody lives there. Above it are offices of some notaries and solicitors. And they can play there until morning, until they drop.

And that's cool in its own way, because there aren't that many places like that in the city.

And I'd sometimes — and I'd even say fairly often — leave before it was all over, because you could end up stuck there or have to walk halfway across the city to find a place to crash: the public transport just stopped running, and you couldn't get a taxi…

From conversations with Kevin and this Mark, the manager, I understood one thing.

They don't make their profit from ticket sales—the revenue from ticket sales was negligible. Even on days with nominally paid admission, most visitors would come in before the entrance fee kicked in.

And the profit — absolutely enormous! — they made it on beer alone, without any hard liquor, without food. Beer!

They didn't have any special food. They had two or three of the most basic dishes cooked in big pots there. You could order them while they lasted: chili con carne, some spicy chili done Thai-style, and these nachos with cheese and some guacamole. Of course, they'd disappear in a flash, there were never any left. But the main thing was beer, beer, beer, beer, and a bit of something strong on top to get you where you needed to be.

By the way, beer prices were on average 70-90 pence, sometimes even a whole pound higher than in an average pub downtown. According to them, they made a million pounds profit on beer alone. Not revenue — profit!

And the rest came as a bonus. That was 2007.

I think: damn, what a cool subject. That's London. You can't do that everywhere. But, hell, the scheme was absolutely bulletproof.

And what's interesting, all the musicians complained that they didn't make enough money. But no one — you understand, no one — left. These concerts at Ain't Nothing But… were always a showcase and a place for "presenting" bands and musicians, and in certain circles, the status of being a resident at Ain't Nothing But… opened the door to "lucrative" private concerts, invitations to local and European blues festivals.

And, by the way, the queue of those wanting to get into rotation, the queue of bands and artists wanting to become residents at Ain't Nothing But…, exceeded all conceivable list sizes. These facts in aggregate kept everyone in orbit, and no one wanted to lose their status as a resident of Ain't Nothing But…

On Mondays and Tuesdays there was always a blues jam there. It was always packed solid, with free admission. Musicians would reserve their spots in advance.

Actually, it was an incredible high. Immersing myself in that scene — it was absolutely mind-blowing. So much grew out of that afterwards. And first and foremost — the understanding that it would be good to share all of this with others.

The Approach of an Invasion

The entire concept of the British Blues Invasion was built on what usually forms the basis of the entire history of foreign bluesmen being brought to Russia.

The frontman arrives and plays with the locals.

But unlike many other promoters, in addition to the obvious things I offered unusual bonuses — accommodation in my house, truly exceptional hospitality: not every family welcomes relatives the way I welcomed my British guests, plus all sorts of typical tourist entertainment.

After Jimmy C arrived at the festival in Petersburg, I made the right connections: I met Mishuris, Suvorov, Roger.

The musicians who backed Jimmy in Petersburg at the "Delta Neva" didn't play particularly well, but everyone immediately understood Jimmy: Vova Rusinov, who played there, Mishuris — they all noticed that Jimmy was a guy with some kind of sunny, cosmic charisma, and he drew everyone in.

Before him there were no dances at all. People would just sit on the clearing in front of the stage, bored, and as soon as Jimmy started playing — everyone rushed toward the stage, and everyone was dancing. There are some cool videos from there somewhere, and you can see it really clearly.

I was making some attempts to bring someone over, but this was 2008, after all…

I'll remind you that in September 2008, on the 22nd, a Monday, the crisis struck.

And right before that, on September 20th, I held a festival at the Green Theater in Gorky Park to celebrate Led Zeppelin's fortieth anniversary. There were two people there who I started all this with. Or rather, they pretended we were doing it together, but in reality I did everything myself, paid for the whole operation out of my own pocket, and they rode on my coattails for the publicity.

And, well, they really knocked me over, of course. Gutted me.

I had some absolutely hellish losses after that festival, debts, lawsuits that I barely made it through. And it was a good school, but an ooooooh very expensive one.

What mattered was something else: when I was finally able, when the last threats of seizure disappeared, when I had paid off my debts and felt that my hands were finally free, I planned Jimmy C's visit.

It was November 2010. And Jimmy played in several places then: he performed at the Forte club, at B.B. King, and somewhere else, I can't remember now.

Including at the Music Town club, which was then on Sadovoe Ring near the Krasnye Vorota metro station. In the building where the famous Dubrovnik restaurant was located back in Soviet times. It was a very cool place.

And so, Jimmy actually had a sell-out performance there. Some 250 people packed into Music Town. It was a real blast. Sergei Voronov was also killing it at the jam with Jimmy.

What's more, my friend Max Kremer from Style TV — there was such a TV channel — suggested: let's say we shoot the concert professionally on six cameras, record the sound, make a really cool story out of it, run it on our television for a year, and then give you the source materials and all the rights, and you can do whatever you want with it.

And that's roughly how it turned out. The material came out excellent. Later I released a DVD and a double CD from that material.

And we went with Jimmy then, and twice after that, around the Golden Ring: Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Uglich…

Then I got the opportunity to take musicians to Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Surgut. And there it was a complete mind-blower—people had never seen anyone like that before. Tour groups don't usually make it out to those places.

At the same time, in 2011 something unpleasant happened to me: I had my first microstroke, kind of a warning bell. Well, I was lucky in a way — I have a strong constitution, a healthy heart, and we caught it in time.

Basically, they saved me.

In early-to-mid February 2013, I brought Frank Ash for the first time. It took practically five years, yes, from the moment we were planning him back at "Blues Delta" — and here he finally was.

And the same thing — with Frank we had a really cool run overall, except for Moscow. He flew in, I picked him up, and we immediately jumped on a night train, arrived in Yaroslavl, and there was this brutal frost, minus 20...

My friend, saxophonist and jazz organizer Stas Maynugin picked us up, we spent the night, and in the morning we drove off to Cherepovets by car, stopping in Rybinsk for rehearsal.

In Cherepovets there's this fancy club, packed to the gills, and it's Valentine's Day on top of it all. Total chaos.

Then concerts in Rybinsk, Ivanovo, Kostroma, a few other places, then Yaroslavl and Uglich.

We're on this Golden Ring tour, probably covered about 3,000 kilometers. Around 500 a day, minimum... in a Lada Kalina, four of us, on snow-covered roads and ice.

And one time we ran out of gas half a kilometer from a gas station... That was quite an adventure.

Frank said later that he had considered killing me back then.

He played in a few clubs, you know, for that glamorous crowd, and always packed houses, but in Ivanovo and Uglich he performed in the philharmonic hall and the Palace of Culture.

Well, I've never seen anything like it in my life — a philharmonic concert for a blues or jazz artist who was, strictly speaking, unknown to anyone, and yet the hall was packed, standing ovations at the end, the entire stage buried in flowers.

This philharmonic hall in Ivanovo is such a grand historical building, as it should be. It's probably been serving as a concert hall since pre-revolutionary times.

Frank played the first set, people clapped and left, and the hall was completely empty. Frank's like: "Will they come back?"

I say "Where else are they gonna go? They've paid up!..."

It turned out there was a big flower shop across the street, they bought it out completely, and people came back and brought just mountains of flowers. Frank was practically in tears.

In October–November 2013, we repeated that experience: we traveled around the Golden Ring again with both Frank and Jimmy.

And all of this is, so to speak, optional, in the background and partly at the expense of my main activity...

And, really, I saw them off, and then two weeks later — bam! — I had a second microinfarction.

And the doctor who treated me the first time had by that moment become head of the department, and he told me:

"Boris Aleksandrovich, how is it possible? We were counting on never seeing you again. Well, in a good sense... And here you are again. You need to change something in your life, my friend."

And the doctor continues:

"Is there something in your life that you truly love?"

I say: "Yes, I love music, blues, and I'm involved in bringing artists here."

"Can this feed you?"

I got to thinking. Well, if you really commit to it—you could give it a try.