Biography
During the late-1960s British blues explosion Mike Vernon emerged as its principal architect, overseeing sessions for John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, Duster Bennett, Savoy Brown, and Ten Years After. Many of those releases appeared on his own Blue Horizon imprint, while additional material surfaced on the smaller Vernon-operated Purdah and Outasite labels; he also documented several American performers for these ventures. Although his reputation rests chiefly on blues and blues-rock productions, Vernon also guided important non-blues artists including David Bowie, Focus, and Bloodstone. After a stint with the Mojo Men he joined Decca Records in 1963, launching his production career with an album by Texas blues singer and pianist Curtis Jones before moving on to projects with the more established American figures Champion Jack Dupree and Otis Spann. At a moment when John Mayall and Eric Clapton had built strong live reputations through the Bluesbreakers yet had recorded relatively little, Vernon persuaded Mayall to cut an album with the Clapton-era lineup for Decca after Mayall’s short stay at Immediate. In 1966 Vernon produced the sole Bluesbreakers album featuring Clapton on guitar, Bluesbreakers, now widely regarded as the definitive British blues record. Earlier British groups such as the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, and Animals had delivered powerful blues-infused tracks, yet those bands also drew heavily from R&B, pop, and rock; Bluesbreakers remained almost entirely devoted to pure blues and showcased some of Mayall and Clapton’s strongest performances, occasionally enriched by a horn section. Vernon likewise helmed the Bluesbreakers’ only album with Clapton’s successor Peter Green, A Hard Road. While working with the Bluesbreakers he came to know the players who would form the core of Fleetwood Mac, most notably Peter Green and bassist John McVie. He produced the band’s earliest albums and singles, among them the hit “Albatross,” and remained involved throughout much of their most blues-focused period. Blue Horizon nevertheless failed to exercise its option for a second year on the group’s contract, causing Fleetwood Mac to depart the label in early 1969.
Vernon continued to find abundant work at Blue Horizon and elsewhere throughout the remainder of the decade, producing recordings by Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown, and numerous other participants in the British blues surge. As an avid blues and R&B devotee himself, he generally permitted the artists considerable latitude in the studio. With stronger acts such as Mayall and Fleetwood Mac the approach yielded excellent results, allowing them to explore pure blues or experiment inside and outside the idiom without the commercial pressures typically exerted by larger labels. Lesser talents, however, sometimes delivered routine or uninspired performances that fell short of the American models they revered. Vernon also supported American musicians, capturing a broad range of accomplished performers on both sides of the Atlantic—Eddie Boyd, Furry Lewis, and Bukka White among them—and licensing U.K. releases by luminaries such as B.B. King and Elmore James. In the early 1970s he himself recorded a solo album for Blue Horizon that featured Rory Gallagher among its guest guitarists.
Vernon’s influence on British music extended past his studio achievements. Over roughly four years, while Blue Horizon enjoyed distribution through CBS and Polydor, the label issued approximately sixty singles and more than one hundred albums, the majority of them blues recordings. At a time when blues discs remained scarce in Britain, Vernon played a major role in elevating the genre’s visibility across the U.K. A useful introduction to his productions and aesthetic can be found on the double-LP Sire anthology History of British Blues, which surveys the British blues scene from the early 1960s into the early 1970s; Vernon compiled the collection, which consists largely of sides he produced. His credits were never confined to blues or blues-rock. In 1967 he produced David Bowie’s self-titled debut album for Decca. Despite Vernon’s own preferences and Bowie’s prior R&B experience, the record contained no blues or R&B elements, instead placing Bowie in his Anthony Newley phase; the arrangements leaned heavily toward orchestrated music-hall styles, a direction Vernon did not favor. During the early 1970s he worked with Dutch progressive-rock band Focus, then moved into soul in the mid-1970s with the American group Bloodstone, whose hit “Natural High” he oversaw, and with the Olympic Runners. Over the following decades Vernon remained active as a producer, though later projects rarely matched the commercial or artistic reach of his British-blues-era work. He stayed primarily within roots-oriented territory, collaborating at various times with Dr. Feelgood, Chris Farlowe, Freddie King, Frankie Ford, and Jimmy Witherspoon, while outside R&B he recorded Level 42. He reactivated the Blue Horizon label in the late 1980s and, during the 1990s, established two additional blues-focused imprints, Indigo and Code Blue.
Vernon continued to find abundant work at Blue Horizon and elsewhere throughout the remainder of the decade, producing recordings by Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, Savoy Brown, and numerous other participants in the British blues surge. As an avid blues and R&B devotee himself, he generally permitted the artists considerable latitude in the studio. With stronger acts such as Mayall and Fleetwood Mac the approach yielded excellent results, allowing them to explore pure blues or experiment inside and outside the idiom without the commercial pressures typically exerted by larger labels. Lesser talents, however, sometimes delivered routine or uninspired performances that fell short of the American models they revered. Vernon also supported American musicians, capturing a broad range of accomplished performers on both sides of the Atlantic—Eddie Boyd, Furry Lewis, and Bukka White among them—and licensing U.K. releases by luminaries such as B.B. King and Elmore James. In the early 1970s he himself recorded a solo album for Blue Horizon that featured Rory Gallagher among its guest guitarists.
Vernon’s influence on British music extended past his studio achievements. Over roughly four years, while Blue Horizon enjoyed distribution through CBS and Polydor, the label issued approximately sixty singles and more than one hundred albums, the majority of them blues recordings. At a time when blues discs remained scarce in Britain, Vernon played a major role in elevating the genre’s visibility across the U.K. A useful introduction to his productions and aesthetic can be found on the double-LP Sire anthology History of British Blues, which surveys the British blues scene from the early 1960s into the early 1970s; Vernon compiled the collection, which consists largely of sides he produced. His credits were never confined to blues or blues-rock. In 1967 he produced David Bowie’s self-titled debut album for Decca. Despite Vernon’s own preferences and Bowie’s prior R&B experience, the record contained no blues or R&B elements, instead placing Bowie in his Anthony Newley phase; the arrangements leaned heavily toward orchestrated music-hall styles, a direction Vernon did not favor. During the early 1970s he worked with Dutch progressive-rock band Focus, then moved into soul in the mid-1970s with the American group Bloodstone, whose hit “Natural High” he oversaw, and with the Olympic Runners. Over the following decades Vernon remained active as a producer, though later projects rarely matched the commercial or artistic reach of his British-blues-era work. He stayed primarily within roots-oriented territory, collaborating at various times with Dr. Feelgood, Chris Farlowe, Freddie King, Frankie Ford, and Jimmy Witherspoon, while outside R&B he recorded Level 42. He reactivated the Blue Horizon label in the late 1980s and, during the 1990s, established two additional blues-focused imprints, Indigo and Code Blue.
Albums
