The Ealing Club — Birthplace of British R&B

The Ealing Club at 42a The Broadway in West Ealing was the venue where British rhythm and blues began — the club run by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies that hosted the Rollin' Stones for their very first public performance in March 1962 and that served as the incubator for the generation of musicians who would transform British popular music throughout the 1960s. Korner's Blues Incorporated, which included Charlie Watts as drummer before he joined the Stones, performed at the Ealing Club every Thursday, and the venue attracted every serious blues enthusiast in London as a regular audience member or occasional performer.

Alexis Korner is one of the least celebrated but most consequential figures in British rock history: a guitarist and bandleader of Greek-Turkish-Austrian-English heritage who had an evangelical commitment to American blues music and a particular gift for recognising and encouraging talent. Through Blues Incorporated and the Ealing Club, he directly nurtured Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and Long John Baldry — essentially a who's who of British blues and rock royalty. Without Korner's club, the trajectory of British popular music in the 1960s would have been substantially different.

The Ealing Club no longer exists as a music venue. The building on The Broadway in West Ealing has been converted to other uses. A blue plaque acknowledges the club's significance as the birthplace of the British R&B movement. West Ealing is accessible from central London by Elizabeth line (formerly Crossrail). The club's historical significance — the specific moment when the Rolling Stones played their first gig, in a basement in Ealing, to an audience of dedicated blues enthusiasts — is thoroughly documented in Stones biography.