Listen to the Graham Bond Organization play their 1964 single ‘Long Tall Shorty’:
Along with Alexis Korner and John Mayall, vocalist and keyboard player Graham Bond is considered to be one of the godfathers of early British R&B. An innovative performer, he mixed jazz influences with R&B and is credited as one of the first musicians to use a Hammond organ and to record with a Mellotron synthesiser. As a member of Korner’s Blues Incorporated septet, he performed during the intervals of their residency at the Flamingo Club as part of a trio with fellow bandmates Jack Bruce (double bass) and Ginger Baker (drums). Realising that they could make more money in a smaller band, the three left Korner and with the addition of guitarist John McLaughlin (later replaced by Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxophone), formed a new act, initially called the Graham Bond Quartet. Although they had a recording contract and gigged heavily with plenty of media exposure, the Graham Bond Organization never enjoyed chart success and its heyday ended when Bruce and Baker left in 1966 to form Cream with Eric Clapton. Bond continued to work as a musician, but dogged by drug and alcohol problems, his life ended under the wheels of a tube train in London in 1974.