We are very pleased to be able to announce that after a long wait, Pre-Orders for Boom Boom Boom Boom – The Blues Photographs of Brian Smith have now opened. The book is currently with the printers and it is planned to ship in January 2025. Pre-ordered copies will be mailed in the order in which we get them and you will get them ahead of any other supplier (including you know who). There is a discount for pre-orders on our official shop as well, the link below goes direct to the order page.

Boom Boom Boom Boom – The Blues Photographs / Pre Order Here

PDF copies have been going out to book reviewers and one of the first to cover it was Bob Bell at the excellent 78 Crazy website he runs. Bob knew Brian and Roger Eagle back in the day, and writes movingly about the scene back then and memories prompted by the photographs. The link below takes you direct to the review but do also take some time to explore other aspects of his website once you have read it!

https://www.78crazy.com/post/the-unseen-r-b-scene-rare-photos-of-the-60s-blues-boom-in-the-uk

If anyone has problems ordering through our shop, then two recommended UK online retailers who support indie publishers and shops are Hive.co.uk and uk.Bookshop.org. Just quote our ISBN and they will be able to take an order. We use them for our own book buying when we cannot get to town. Do feel free to hassle Waterstones who can also order our titles but refuse to carry them in store!

Here’s another spread from the book, Chuck Berry in animated conversation with one of Brian’s friends backstage and later larking about in his mate’s car before they all went out for dinner. The other page shows The Chants, one of whom later founded The Real Thing.