Long before they became rock legends, three teenagers absorbed the raw power of American blues — and carried it into history.
In 1962, a young Jimmy Page traveled to Manchester for the American Folk Blues Festival, a tour that brought Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and other blues legends from the U.S. to England. He wasn’t alone — future Rolling Stones frontmen Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were in the crowd too. For these teenagers, it wasn’t just a concert. It was a revelation.
“We could hardly believe that real blues artists were going to appear here in our country,” Page recalled in David Williams’ book The First Time We Met The Blues. “They were regarded somewhat like mystic gods within our circle.”
The American Folk Blues Festival was one of the first tours to showcase authentic American blues to European audiences. While folk revivalists explored acoustic traditions, this festival brought raw, electric energy that British teens had rarely experienced firsthand.
The 1962 event was the festival's inaugural run, and the lineup at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall read like a who’s who of blues royalty: T-Bone Walker, Memphis Slim, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon.
For Page, Jagger and Richards, it was a musical awakening. Page absorbed the tone and phrasing of blues guitarists. Jagger and Richards were captivated by the rhythm, storytelling and emotional intensity. More than inspiration, it was a blueprint for their future music careers.
At the time, Page was performing in Neil Christian and the Crusaders, whose setlists mixed R&B and Top 20 material.
“But I was really keen to play the blues,” Page told Guitar Player in 2024. “And when I say 'the blues,' definitely the Chess catalog, and it was in advance of everything that was going to come.”
Page described the festival as a pilgrimage for him and fellow young blues enthusiasts. It was also where he first met Jagger and Richards.
“At the Manchester festival, I met Mick and Keith,” Page said. “They didn’t have the Stones then; they were just blues enthusiasts on a pilgrimage, like all of us, and we were in a house where the guy had just got the Howlin’ Wolf album with the rocking chair on the cover.
”Nobody had heard it up until then, but we all heard it that day. So yes, that was one life-changing thing, but everything is changing your perspective on things, broadening your outlook and opening it out.”
For Richards, who had only known these artists through crackly imported records, seeing them perform live was a visceral shock. He speaks with particular reverence about T-Bone Walker, the suave showman of the electric guitar, and his large Gibson hollowbody.
“You wouldn't be able to get me out of that place,” Richards later remarked of his dedication to seeing every note.
Within a few years, Page was experimenting in local bands, refining the riffs and textures that would eventually define Led Zeppelin. Jagger and Richards channeled that same energy into the Rolling Stones’ early blues covers, bridging the Atlantic in sound and style. The festival became a touchstone: an experience that informed every note these young musicians would play.
“I was seduced by the beauty of what a six-string instrument could do,” Page told Guitar Player.
That Manchester festival wasn’t just a show. It was a crossroads where three teenagers encountered the blues in its purest form and walked away changed. From Led Zeppelin’s heavy riffs to the Stones’ swaggering covers, traces of that night remain in every iconic lick.
Page, Jagger and Richards may have gone on to define rock music, but they never forgot the lesson the blues taught them: music is more than technique — it’s communication, connection and feeling. And it all started that night in Manchester.
