Blues Project

The Blues Project is a band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and originally split up in 1967. While their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles, they are most remembered as one of the earliest practitioners of psychedelic rock, as well as one of the world's first jam bands, along with the Grateful Dead.

In 1964, Elektra Records produced a compilation album of various artists entitled, The Blues Project, which featured several white musicians from the Greenwich Village area who played acoustic blues music in the style of black musicians. One of the featured artists on the album was a young guitarist named Danny Kalb, who was paid $75 for his two songs. Not long after the album's release, however, Kalb gave up his acoustic guitar for an electric one. The Beatles' arrival in the United States earlier in the year signified the end of the folk and acoustic blues movement that had swept the US in the early 1960s.......Kalb's first rock and roll band was formed in the spring of 1965, playing under various names at first, until finally settling on the Blues Project moniker as an allusion to Kalb's first foray on record.....(Read more at Wikipedia)

Links to Peel
It's not known whether Peel heard The Blues Project during his time in the United States, but on his Perfumed Garden show on Radio London, their Projections LP was played regularly. Peel said on the programme that the record had been sent to him by a listener whom he described as a "beautiful German psychologist lady" (ref.) and he was particularly keen on the instrumental "Flute Thing", whose peaceful mood suited his late-night programme. He played it on the final Perfumed Garden and, like many of the records he featured on the programme, the LP was eventually released in the UK. However it was the only Blues Project LP to become available in Britain, because by the end of 1967 the band had broken up. Nonetheless, Peel reviewed their LP Live At Town Hall in April 1968 in International Times, although he seemed to wander off-topic:


 * I hope good music affects you as it does me. Things like the 10 minute 'Electric flute thing' that open this record run through my veins and through my tired old head. Time swims lazily around me unconcerned about its normal function. There are so many good things to hear and so few chances to hear them.....'

After leaving the Blues Project, Al Kooper and Steve Katz formed Blood, Sweat and Tears. Peel played tracks from their first LP although he was critical of it in International Times ("already disbanded and so disjointed as to be distracting". In fact they didn't disband; after Al Kooper left the group they hired singer David Clayton-Thomas and went on to have spectacular success, although Peel disliked them, as did many rock critics who found them too slick and commercial. The DJ was a little more open to Al Kooper's post BS&T work, playing tracks from the acclaimed Super Session LP of 1968 and interviewing Kooper as a studio guest on the Night Ride of 20 November 1968. But he was less impressed by the Blues Project's reunion albums of the early 1970s.

Sessions
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Other Shows Played
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 * DD Month YYYY: Song (single/album) Label