At the time I was getting into the Blues I would have been around seventeen and he had a chart hit with, “Smokestack Lightning” and I was immediately hooked. I went and bought every other record of his I could find. Since those days, Graham and I have kept in touch and through the years I’ve sat in with his band many times. We’ve also done the occasional gig with other bands and sporadic duo gigs as well.

Oh, yes! We first met around 1963. At that time, a friend, John White, and I decided to form what was to be my first band. We advertised in the musicians bible of those days, the Melody Maker, for like-minded people and Graham answered the call. We had some difficulty in finding bass players and drummers who were familiar with what we wanted to do- Chicago Blues along the lines of Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf etc. so we made do with drummers obtained from the aforementioned MM for the occasional gig or audition. Oh, by the way, we called it the Down Home Blues Band. Unusually for the time, at least as far as Blues was concerned, Graham and I wrote the material. Eventually, in 1964, we entered the R&B competition run by the National Jazz Federation at the Marquee Club and did well enough to be offered a gig there. After a while, John decided to call it a day and the band broke up.

My next move was to join an R&B band local to my home at the time in Dagenham. It included the bass player Ray Chappell who of course went on to join Savoy Brown and subsequently introduced me to the band. Graham and I had stayed in touch and after that band broke up, we formed a Country-Blues duo called, Buck & Wing and we’d do folk clubs.

When I left home in 1965 I stayed with Graham and his family in West Central London for a while before getting my own place nearby. In the same year we joined a South London R&B band led by Bill and Frances McGillivray. In 1966, we got together with Dave and John Peverett to form the Lonesome Jax Blues Band. The bass player was Jim Bailkie. We also ran a Blues club called the Stormy Monday. After that I joined a soul band where I first encountered bass player Steve Yorke and Graham formed the first Shakey Vick band (personnel Rod Price gtr, Ron Skinner bass, Mel Wright drums.)

Looking back to that time in 1967 it all seems a little chaotic. Bands formed for two or three gigs and some musicians were in three or four bands at the same time. Really, it was whoever got a gig would call the musicians he or she knew to see who was available. I can recall, for example, working with Stones Masonry (Martin Stone gtr, Will Stallibrass harp, Keith Tillman bass and Pete Thomas drums) and the great Jazz and Blues pianist Johnny Parker and also Bob Hall, Jo Ann Kelly and Dave Kelly.

I did solo spots at a West London club, worked with bands whose names I’m afraid now escape me and deputized for Bryce Portius in Savoy Brown when he was sick. When Graham had a gig at a place called, The Hole in the Ground, I’d go and do that one. I think the most off-the-wall thing I did was with a free form jazz group got together by Steve Yorke at the UFO club. My role was to declaim poetry over the music in a suitably majestic voice. 

Well, I wouldn’t describe myself as a purist in the sense that I like all forms of Blues and some of the content of many other types of music as well; R&B, Soul, Jazz, Folk and C&W. Again, as far as my own output with Savoy Brown and as a solo artist is concerned, my intention has been to stretch the Blues a bit to incorporate other elements into it, for example, a different rhythm or chord sequence. But if you decide to do Chicago Blues as we did with Movin’ Along, then I think you have to stay true to the musical form and not mess around with it.

I have to say that much though I admire the talent and ability of heavy Rock guitarists, I wish I had it!, and again it’s no mean thing to have created a whole new musical genre which was the foundation for everything in Rock that came after it- I don’t feel much of an affinity with heavy Rock music. (Ed's note: Chris Youlden clarified this later in the interview : "Speaking of sixties music, I think, on reflection, I ought to revise my earlier statement about having no affinity with Rock. In actual fact, of course, there were many artists and bands that I admired: Steve Winwood/Traffic, Steve Miller and Lowell George/Little Feat.)

As to what inspires me to write, I guess my own personal experience of life, observations of other peoples’ lives and a mixture of the two. Also, the imagining of what other peoples’ lives and situations might be like. If you’re in love, you’ll write a love song. If you’ve just been sold a bum used car you’ll write a cynical song about used car salesmen. You might overhear a conversation or hear about somebody having a hard time and those things might provide the stimulus for a storyline. Here you inject your own experience, i.e. “What did it feel like when a similar thing happened to me?” or use your imagination, “What would I feel like if it was me?” Then again, you might construct a totally imaginary situation. I’ll try to illustrate what I’ve said. 

“Stay While The Night Is Young” (penned by Youlden for the 1970 Savoy Brown album, Raw Sienna) is an example of a song that just seems to appear in the head. It was two o’clock in the morning on a beautiful summer night in L.A. I can remember looking out of the hotel window at the city lights and feeling very mellow. All of a sudden the lyrics and melody line of the first verse just came to me. I picked up the guitar, blocked in the chords and took it from there- a pure stream of consciousness thing. I had it down in ten minutes.

A big inspiration to me as far as writing Blues is concerned was Willie Dixon. His songs usually have great riffs and clever combinations of vocal lines. In the song, “You Ain’t Foolin’ Me” which I wrote for the Second Sight album (1995- Line Records), I tried to get his vocal patterns. To quote from the song, “You can smooth-talk your grocer and let him pay your bill. You can sweet-talk your banker and change his won’t to will.”

Another guy that influenced me a great deal musically was Ray Charles, particularly his keyboard playing, band arrangements and song structures. One example would be, “I’m Tired” (from the 1969 Savoy Brown LP, A Step Further) with its alternating E7-A7 pattern in the verses ending on the B7#9 chord and the stops in the middle 8. Another would be, “A Hard Way To Go” (Raw Sienna) which has a verse pattern of Gm7-C9-Gm7-C9-D7#9, Gm7-C9-Gm7, Eb9-D7#9-Gm7 followed by a change in time signature in the middle 8 with a Jazz influence. The guitar phrase in unison at the end G,F,D,C#,C,Bb,G-Bb emulates a brass line.

As far as Chicago Blues and Country Blues were concerned, I have to thank the guy I mentioned earlier, John White, for introducing me to them. That would have been around 1962. He brought around two EPs one day which I still have today. One of them was a compilation, featuring Muddy Waters,’ “Honey Bee,” John Lee Hooker’s, “Whistlin’ and Moanin’ Blues,” Big Bill Broonzey’s, “Letter To My Baby,” and Sonny Terry and Alex Stewart’s, “Saturday Evening.” The other had, “The Road Is Rough” and “Crawlin’ Black Spider”- versions of, “Hobo Blues” and “Crawlin’ King Snake.”

Incidentally, John was also responsible or me taking up the guitar. I always sang along with Rock and Roll and Blues records, but it was his idea to form a band. He decided to make his own guitar and gave me the acoustic guitar he already had.

Well, the project was originally conceived by Graham and Mel (Wright, drums)). The idea was to try and recreate the sort of music we were interested in when we started out. Pete (Moody, bass) and Bernie (Pallo, lead guitar) got involved and we took it from there.

Well, when the idea was put to me I didn’t have any songs in the Chicago Blues genre to hand so we decided to use Graham’s material. Bernie and I went round to Graham’s place and we had an acoustic rehearsal; we worked out guitar parts, how the vocals were going to be approached etc. We then had a day in rehearsals with Pete and Mel followed by a day in the studio and another one for mixing. It was great. Everything, including the vocals, was recorded at the same time in one or two takes. It helped immensely that the engineer, Mick Wigfall, is a fine musician in his own right who had a knowledge of what we were trying to achieve.

The type of song, the style of music and even the key to the song all influence the vocal approach as do, of course, the lyrics. If I’d done a solo version of, say, “Movin’ Along,” I would have sung it the same way.

Yeah, the experience was very enjoyable. Mind you, when I’ve got the time, I sit down and play things like, “Honey Bee” and “Hobo Blues” for my own amusement. They were two of the first Blues I ever learnt.

In the 1960s the results would have been very much worse!

As far as Maxwell Street is concerned we’re taking it one step at a time. Originally, it was conceived purely as a recording project. However, we’ll consider any offers for live gigs that come in.

I consider everything that comes in and I am always open to offers.