this post-war era, a youth culture was created that resented the culturally conservative society of their parents. This group of youth found an escape from their frustrations in American Rock & Roll music. Through this music, a niche audience of British youth discovered the blues. Blues music became the focus of many British teens' lives as a way of moving away from their parent's generation. Rather than blues music being the driving force that shaped these individuals lives, their experiences as adolescents led them to the music, in turn creating the British blues. This thesis provides a narrative for these events through the voices of the individuals that experienced them first hand. Through musicians like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Muddy Waters, this thesis focuses on the discovery of the blues by British youth and the creation of a blues community in England, as well as the effects of that community on the lives of the American blues musicians who had introduced England to the music. In discovering this music, British blues musicians perpetuated its traditions, introducing it to American audiences and reviving the careers of the African American blues musicians that had influenced them.
