How Belfast Got the Blues

The popular history of Northern Ireland has been overshadowed by the violence of the Troubles. How Belfast Got the Blues reconsiders the period before 1969, arguing that popular music in Northern Ireland was central to the politics of the time, in ways not previously understood or explored.

Placing Northern Ireland at the forefront of a key moment in British and Irish cultural history, Noel Mclaughlin and Joanna Braniff weave a fascinating account of the popular-musical culture and local 'scene' in Northern Ireland with the broader and highly complex context of the social-political milieu, offering original and insightful readings of key 1960s figures, including the early career of Van Morrison and Them, the neglected Belfast blues singer Ottilie Patterson, the provocative film director Peter Whitehead, and The Rolling Stones. The book also includes new material, obtained in interviews and through meticulous archival research, to challenge the mainstream narrative of the mid-1960s music scene in Belfast.

By intertwining politics, culture and unexplored key personalities, the authors have fashioned a new lens to re-examine this most radical decade and the complex but essential relationship between music and identity.