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The 16 Best Blues Rock Bands of All Time

By YPB Team

The bands that plugged the twelve-bar blues into an amplifier, from Cream and the Yardbirds to the Black Keys — with Led Zeppelin, whose first album was mostly blues, among them.

  1. Led Zeppelin — ranked #11
    Led Zeppelin
    Built a first album almost entirely out of blues covers and blues borrowings, then took the form somewhere heavier.
    1000pts
  2. Cream — ranked #22
    Cream
    Clapton, Bruce and Baker turned the blues trio into a vehicle for extended improvisation.
    733pts
  3. Canned Heat — ranked #33
    Canned Heat
    Boogie specialists whose Woodstock set kept the pre-war blues audible to a rock crowd.
    551pts
  4. The Jimi Hendrix Experience — ranked #44
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience
    A blues guitarist with a fuzzbox and a rhythm section that could follow him anywhere.
    466pts
  5. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble — ranked #55
    Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
    The 1980s revival act that made a Stratocaster and a Texas shuffle commercial again.
    466pts
  6. Joe Bonamassa — ranked #66
    Joe Bonamassa
    The most visible current standard-bearer, playing theatres on a catalogue of originals and deep covers.
    466pts
  7. The Rolling Stones — ranked #77
    The Rolling Stones
    Named themselves after a Muddy Waters song and spent sixty years arguing they meant it.
    363pts
  8. Fleetwood Mac — ranked #88
    Fleetwood Mac
    Before the California pop era, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac was Britain's most serious blues band.
    363pts
  9. ZZ Top — ranked #99
    ZZ Top
    A Texas trio that kept the twelve-bar form intact through disco, MTV and everything after.
    363pts
  10. The Yardbirds — ranked #1010
    The Yardbirds
    The band that employed Clapton, Beck and Page in turn, and invented the rave-up.
    363pts
  11. The Black Keys — ranked #1111
    The Black Keys
    A drums-and-guitar duo from Akron who dragged the form back onto modern radio.
    363pts
  12. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band — ranked #1212
    The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
    The integrated Chicago band that plugged in behind Dylan at Newport in 1965.
    363pts
  13. Derek and the Dominos — ranked #1313
    Derek and the Dominos
    Clapton and Duane Allman for one album, which happened to contain 'Layla'.
    363pts
  14. The Allman Brothers Band — ranked #1414
    The Allman Brothers Band
    Two lead guitars, a Fillmore East live album, and the Southern half of the genre.
    0pts
  15. The White Stripes — ranked #1515
    The White Stripes
    Two people, a red-and-white uniform, and a catalogue built on Son House and Blind Willie McTell.
    0pts
  16. Gary Moore — ranked #1616
    Gary Moore
    An Irish guitarist who left hard rock for the blues in 1990 and made the best-selling record of his career.
    0pts

#music834#rock209#bands204#guitar5#blues rock1

Comments

Willie Dixon was added to the credits of Whole Lotta Love after suing in 1985, which is the awkward part of Led Zeppelin's blues record: https://youpick.best/articles/led-zeppelin-ranked-many-ways

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ypb-team·16h ago·
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